


sun & moon

by healsvt



Category: NCT (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Angst with a Happy Ending, Coming of Age, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Summer Love, i just love kisses, side markhyuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-10-29 13:57:55
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 40,354
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20797736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/healsvt/pseuds/healsvt
Summary: lee jeno looks as if he truly belonged to the moon, exactly as an impossible dream to reach.(or: in which it's summer, jeno wants to kiss someone and jaemin, being the best friend in the world he is, decides to teach him)





	1. summertime is meant to fall in love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story started as a tweet in april because i needed a nct dream summer au. it finally came into reality this summer when i was listening to [ summertime in paris ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rL4jorQlXw) by jaden smith. so thank you jaden for inspiring me to write this fic, i owe you my life ( ˘ ³˘)  
i've also made a playlist on spotify that you can check [here](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0fzWQGnEM7zZlZp9RCfnXn?si=7bjE7MM5RV-TQBtzWYMttQ), which contains the songs mentioned in the fic (there're a lot!!!) and also songs that i've listened to while writing, hope you enjoy them! (ꈍᴗꈍ)  
[moodboard ](https://padlet.com/healsvt/ijznujbd81r1)for the fic!  
thank you lili for being my beta reader and one of my best friends, too. thank you for always being so supportive, for believing i was capable of writing a 40k fanfic, for re-reading all the chapters so many times to find all my stupid mistakes, even though you were busy with uni+work, for making me laugh so much while correcting, and also for crying with this story the same way i did when i was writing it! (thank you thank you thank you!) i love you.  
and thanks to my twitter friends, the ones that have always been supporting me since i started writing this story. i love you all.

_summertime is meant to fall in love_   
_i could fall asleep or stare in your eyes_   
_you're right by my side._

**☼.**

the first thing that disrupts the peaceful silence that has been filling the empty spaces of jeno’s room that lazy afternoon is the buzz of a bee. it makes jeno’s eyes scan the room until they spot it flying near the open window. the second thing is the mellow voice of jaemin, breaking through the curtains, smoothly, like the warm summer breeze that is also entering into the room.

“i’ve been thinking…” jaemin starts saying in a nonchalant tone. his hands brush the silky white curtains, unable to hide the midday sun that is lingering on his face. he’s staring quietly at the motion of the curtains but jeno’s long lashes flutter slightly to glance at jaemin, instead.

the sunbeams draw dark shadows onto his face, shadows that come from the leaves outside, swayed by the wind. the motion of the leaves make the shadows dance from his nose to one of his eyes and before they can also reach the corner of his mouth, jaemin turns his head and the shadows end up placed against his cheek.

“jeno?” jaemin calls, looking up to him. jeno is sitting near him with his back pressed against the empty wall, hands still holding his phone. he blinks twice, snapping out of his trance, as if he was just woken up from a dream.

“huh… sorry, what?”

jaemin rolls over onto his back to look at him with narrowed eyes, the shadows now perched at the back of his head, patting him.

“i said that i’d like to start something,” he reformulates the sentence.

the bee buzzes in slow motions around the window but jaemin seems unbothered by its presence and jeno doesn’t care at all. the slightly air enters the room and blows jaemin’s hair strands over his forehead. jeno has the urge to fix them; he could place those rebel locks behind his ears, fingers curling around them so tenderly and feathery-like, jaemin would never notice it.

“which thing?” he asks, instead.

“have you ever wondered how many memories are hidden in flavors, or scents?” jaemin says, leaning on his chin. “or a place, for instance. when you smell something and somehow it evocates you to that person or a memory you have with them. things you thought you had forgotten, but suddenly come alive again because they’ve been always there, waiting for you to recall them.”

unlike jeno, jaemin likes to share his thoughts with an amazing ease. he rather say it aloud than keep it in his mind because, as jeno can tell, he likes to taste them in his tongue to see if they make any sense at all. so he waits for jeno’s answer after asking,

“don’t you wish you could save those flavors or scents forever?”

the bee finally stops on the window like a cinnabar autumn leaf that has not fallen yet. he finds it cute, with its tiny fat and hairy body resting against the frame, probably exhausted due to a long trip. perhaps it has been searching for a flower to make some honey, but it has ended up in jeno’s room, disoriented. or it may have mistaken jaemin’s goldish skin and honeyed hair, instead.

yes, of course jeno wishes he could save them. his grandmother used to bake a red velvet cake that he loved. whenever he went to korea, she would welcome him with a piece prepared specially for him. she always saved the last piece of cake at the end of the day, once the whole family had already eaten their part, so he could sneak in the kitchen at midnight and eat it. he wishes he could save that flavor in a tiny box so every time he opened it, he would feel the same excitement and joy that he used to feel every time he visited her on christmas. nonetheless, when it comes to scents, the only thing that comes up to his mind is the way his bed smells after jaemin has laid there for hours. he thinks of the aroma of tangerines mixed with traces of that sweet fabric softener attached on his clothes and skin and hair. scents that spread like pollen all over jeno’s bed and pillows every time jaemin buries his head on them.

it’s embarrassing, he ponders, that he notices those details and that he kind of envies his pillow. if he’d voiced out those thoughts like jaemin does, he would think jeno is weird. how could he explain to him that he’s jealous of the shadows of a tree because they’re allowed to stroke his face, without making things awkward? _embarrassing_, he repeats in his head.

“well… i guess i do?”

he feels dumb thinking all those stupid things about na jaemin, of all people. his best friend since... forever. his whole life, basically. nana, the boy of big smiles and gentle hands and melting voice filled with nice words, who speaks in pouts and loves making playlists for every kind of mood. the boy that leaves kisses on his friends’ cheeks when they least expect it and laughs loudly and silly when mark and jisung protest, showing their disgust. the mom friend who always carries band-aids in his pockets just because what if. jaemin, whose house is next to jeno’s, but he rather spends his free time in jeno’s room than anywhere else. the only person whom jeno wants to share his bed with even in summer, when the sticky heat perches annoyingly on his skin. his neighbor because jeno’s a lucky guy and it happens that some mysterious and invisible force wanted them to be together in this universe, so fate did its job and they found each other, somehow.

na jaemin, someone for whom he shouldn’t have feelings for. 

at least, not _that_ kind of feelings.

jeno catches himself not breathing at that thought, and it makes him more embarrassed, if possible. _god_, he thinks, _i really am an idiot_. and wishes jaemin can never learn how to read minds.

“that’s why i thought that i should start writing down all those flavors and scents and the memory they evocate me,” jaemin muses. “but if i’d write something like a journal, it would be a mess, so i was wondering…”

his voice melts like honey, pouring his ears, warm, soft spoken but smoky. jeno wonders how it would taste against his mouth, if it would leave traces on his lips; and shies away the idea of enjoying that thought. instead, he ponders if he could save it, somehow, in that box near the spot of his favorite flavor and add, perhaps, jaemin’s scent too; just in case it could ever be forgotten.

_just. in. case._

the bee starts to move again as if it could sense there’s honey somewhere near, and jeno blames jaemin and his mellifluous voice and stupid hair, blown away like dandelion seeds. the bee attempts to enter the room but before crossing the window frame, it rotates into another direction and goes away.

“what about a notebook? so you can make a list or something like that, collect them all and write them down,” jeno suggests.

“should i?”

if only that box could exist…

“i guess?”

jaemin stops for a few seconds and something crosses his mind, jeno would like to know what it is because jaemin’s face lightens up and his eyes start to shine brightly but as sooner as it happens, that thought fades out as so does the smile which is replaced by a pout.

“but don’t you think it's a stupid idea?” he says, letting out a sigh, “i don’t even know what i’m saying…”

“i think it’s-” jeno tries to bring back that big smile but shuts his mouth in the middle of the sentence instead, because jaemin gets up in a sudden and hurries to close the window.

“god, it almost comes inside!” jaemin screams.

jeno blinks again, confused, until he realizes the bee has attempted to enter this time. both of them look at each other in completely silence and, for a second, he’s afraid jaemin has truly developed the superpower of reading minds, but he just shakes his head.

“why are you so distracted today?” he says as he lays again onto his bed, jeno’s messy bed, full of books spread all over the sheets. jaemin has been searching for something to read that summer (“why do you have this one?” “why wouldn’t i?” “it doesn’t fit you” “it’s just a book” “a book that you wouldn’t read in a million years” “you know, there are two kind of people: the ones that buy books and actually read them and the ones that end up forgetting them in their bookshelves. i’m the second type, so yes, it does fit me, at least at the time i bought it”).

summer begins just like tiny shadows in the morning, deep and strong and exciting but, as time passes, they stretch and stretch until they turn into sunset shadows so long you can’t even reach to see their ends. summer becomes boring, monotonous, and you find yourself wishing it would end sooner. jaemin needs something to keep his mind working, he goes outside despite the heat, he goes on trips with his friends, he spends most of his time perched on jeno’s bed, too. he clearly needs to read a book.

“huh, dunno. maybe it’s the heat,” jeno lies, eyes shunning jaemin’s as he unconsciously touches the back of his own head.

he has always been the worst liar of them all, and his best friend knows that too. jeno’s certain jaemin has caught the lie between his fingers, eyes narrowing a little, but he just replies “summer, i guess,” and exhales. his voice comes muffled by jeno’s pillow in which jaemin has sunk his face and he thinks he definitely should invent that box.

the sound of a tiny rock crashing on the glass of the window catches both of them by surprise, turning around at the same time, to see who is calling. jeno climbs over jaemin, fingers perching on the bottom rails of the window to support himself until he reaches the lock open and slides his head out, leaning his elbows on the window ledge.

a mess of brown hair with tiny eyes meet jeno’s.

“hey, dumbass!” the boy says. since last summer, park jisung has grown a lot. the baby face is still there, but his voice has changed so much for the past months sometimes jeno can’t recall it’s his. he’s riding the bike he had broken some weeks ago.

“your bike is fixed!” jeno points out, too used to jisung’s insults to care. jisung’s mouth tugs up into a smile so big he could challenge jaemin’s.

“yes, taeyong has even painted it in red! see?” the boy moves away, prompting jeno to glance at his bicycle.

of course it had to be taeyong, doyoung’s best friend, jaemin’s ex-baby sitter and the most charming person in the neighborhood. he wears those silvery rings on his fingers, never cuts his mullet, dyes his hair in soft vanilla colors, dresses as if he was a model and paints his nails when he’s bored.

jeno thinks he’s the coolest person he has ever met.

since they were only kids, and even though they were the most mischievous ones of the whole neighborhood, taeyong has always taken care of them as if they were his little brothers. he teaches them things no one has taken the time to, listens to their concerns, gives them advice and lets them lay on the porch at afternoon while he writes things he never shares with anyone. taeyong studies an english literature degree, he’s always surrounded by books of all sizes, and his eyes sparkle when he talks about poetry, music and even art. lee taeyong collects plants and names every frog, stray cat or bird that likes to spend its time near his house. he knows everything, the name of constellations and gemstones and plants and flowers and words jeno could never imagine they existed; he probably knows what is hiding at the end of the universe, too.

jaemin likes to call him the wise man when he’s not around and jisung loves going to his house, listen to his rants and ask him all kind of things (“jisung, he would end up getting tired of your silly questions.” “he won’t! he told me it’s okay, you’re just jealous because you’re boring”). taeyong writes music and, sometimes, gives mark advice on his rapping because both of them like to share their hobbies and listen to each other with thoughtful eyes.

the boys, all of them, including jeno himself, adore him. and it’s not just because they have probably idealized him a bit, but because he’s an adult that treats them as if they weren’t that stupid and immature, even though they actually are.

perhaps kind could be the best word to describe him, but chenle always says that taeyong’s most remarkable quality is that he’s talented, skillful, so it doesn’t come as a surprise that the guy also knows how to fix bicycles.

“and to celebrate it, we’re going to the river. are you coming?” jisung continues.

jaemin gets up and flutters his eyelashes near jeno’s cheeks as he shows up at the window. “now?” he says, hands clenched on the bottom of the window ledge.

“nana!” jisung’s face lights up. he’s so happy to see him jeno is almost hurt, but it’s been always like this.

“who’s ‘we’?” jaemin asks, a smile appearing at the corners of his mouth, growing like flowers in the middle of an empty field.

“mark, donghyuck, chenle and renjun. the usual.”

“did you even ask them?”

jisung looks down, eyes skimming the ground. “no, but they would come if i’d told them you two are.”

jeno sighs. “okay, okay. tell ‘em we’re coming.”

jeno gets back inside, followed by jaemin, and looks for his swimming trunks while jaemin observes, impatient, until they finally leave. he tugs jaemin’s shirt with only two fingers to guide him down the stairs and, as they pass by doyoung’s room, they stop to say goodbye. jeno’s brother seems far away from there, though, eyes glued to the screen of his phone, mouth closed in a sharp line with his jaw resting on his palm. he blinks and waves with a contrived smile and jeno wants to ask what is happening, but jisung is waiting outside.

at the front door they find a blonde boy sitting by the porch stairs, waiting for someone. jeno knows too well who’s the person he’s waiting for.

“hey, jungwoo” he salutes as he passes by his side and the boy smirks shyly and replies with a low but cute “hi” as he unglues his eyes from the screen of his phone.

jeno has already gotten used to seeing the boy around his house by that time, when he finalizes his shift and goes right to visit doyoung. other days, he would be welcomed by a shy smile painted on doyoung’s face, they’d enter doyoung’s room and close the door behind, their laughs would run the walls through, reach jeno and jaemin’s ears and both of them would wonder what’s up with them.

today, though, he’s at the porch, alone, while his brother is upstairs.

the first time jeno noticed jungwoo was at the basketball court near mark’s house. the sun was already hidden beyond the horizon, the moon smoothly peeking at the corner of the sky, and jungwoo showed up through the shadows under the white street lights that illuminated the basketball court. he was playing with some boys older than jeno whose names he still doesn’t know. only after the unique sound of yukhei’s laughter broke through the mess of voices and noise, did they acknowledge the presence of their friend. they turned their heads to say hi, and yukhei crossed the court in a few strides to meet them. he started to talk about something jeno can’t recall and jungwoo went by to tell yukhei he needed his portable charger. he stumbled, grabbed the nearest arm to steady himself and looked up while storming all kind of apologies, almost dropping his own phone.

doyoung casually happened to be there at that exact moment.

“my brother is here, if you want to come in,” jeno informs, but jungwoo denies it with a soft smile that clearly hides something jeno can’t guess.

jaemin is the one who pulls him by the edges of his t-shirt this time, dragging him and saying goodbye to avoid the awkward conversation of why doyoung is not coming to greet him today.

they meet jisung and his box full of lost things he’s collected from the street, because that’s his favorite hobby. he shows jeno the new things he has found (an old coin from another country, two handmade bracelets and a pack of chewing gums) while jaemin runs to his house to get his swimming trunks too. when he comes back, they get on their bikes and go, jaemin sitting at the back of jeno’s because he doesn’t own one.

it may be the way jaemin’s hands clasp together around his waist when he sits behind him, how his chin finds the corner of jeno’s shoulder. he feels his weight on him, the scent of the tangerines he has eaten half an hour ago still perched on his skin, his hair tickling jeno’s ears, jaemin’s chest going up and down as he breathes the air that hits his face while they ride down the street.

jaemin is goldish and melting and dazzling and jeno doesn’t care if his hands are sweaty and jaemin’s body feels too warm against his, because nothing could ever separate them, nor even a fierce blizzard or the flaming sigh of the almighty sun.

jeno realizes he doesn’t find jaemin’s proximity annoying, but endearing, and he wishes, for once, not being only na jaemin’s best friend but something else.

**☼.**

the thing that jeno enjoys the most about summer are those trips to the river near donghyuck’s house. walking down the tree-lined driveway, the sound of the gravel shrugging under their feet, the hot sunrays burning their skin, birds shaking the tree branches above their heads, the motion of the shadows across their bare arms.

they leave a trail of their bikes’ wheels behind, like veins leading you to the heart of a leafy forest. alongside the narrow path, there’re wildflowers growing between the tall leaves of grass, all green and full of life. sometimes jaemin would take two or three home, he would try to place them on someone’s ears and smile widely at the sight, satisfied. and once they stumble into the riverbank, the balmy water would wash away all traces thickness and heaviness carried by the summer breeze, as they bask in the sun.

today, the sun greets them with warm hands and languid arms, brushing the tip of their noses and cheeks, making them all blush under its touch. jeno loves sitting at the edge of the pier, with his feet caressing the surface of the water like the soft weight of dragonflies’ hands, until he sinks them to his ankles, hearing the smooth bubbling sound of the water. on those occasions, someone would splash water onto his bare arms and tummy and he would fight them back spreading suds with frantic kicks. however, there’re also times in which they rather lay down near the edge of the pier, talking about things nobody cares about except them, with a choir of cicadas at the back, hiding somewhere behind the leaves and mossy trees.

“jungwoo was at my house again,” jeno says out of the blue. “but something was off today.”

mark turns his head to look at him, losing the sight of donghyuck plunging into the river and splashing some water onto renjun’s face, who gets on his feet immediately while cursing, and follows donghyuck to the river ready to fight him. the sound of a splash floods jeno’s ears like an explosion of fireworks in the limpid night sky.

“what?” mark asks.

“yeah, doyoung was… so serious, kind of pissed?”

“maybe they had a couple fight,” mark guesses, eyes following donghyuck’s figure as he comes skittering away from renjun’s arms, high-pitched screams and laughs echoing all over the place. their footsteps shake the pier slightly. they’re soaked in water and decide to shake their heads annoyingly like dogs, raining all over them, upsetting a quiet and sleepy jisung. jaemin avoids the drops by shifting to sit near jeno until their hands are shyly touching on the surface of the pier.

“really? you think they’re dating?” jeno says, faintly.

“yeah, for sure. i’ve seen them kissing.”

“and because they were kissing they are lovers? maybe they're just hooking up, you know,” renjun says, hands placed on his waist, the sun shining right behind him, making it impossible to see his face. jeno flushes by the comment but renjun isn’t mistaken at all, doyoung and jungwoo would be making out right now if they hadn’t fought; jeno is not that stupid.

jaemin tilts his head so he’s now facing the sky, and closes an eye. his sunkissed face shrinks into wrinkles while he squeezes his eyes shut, shapes appearing onto his face, shapes that jeno would like to touch to see if they soften under the weight of his fingerprints. they’re all shirtless, but jaemin’s gold powdered skin glows under the embrace of the summer light. some drops fall down his chest, drawing thin lines on his skin and jeno has to look away immediately. it’s not like he hasn’t seen jaemin’s torso a million times, they’ve literally grown up together, he’s used to that sight, definitely. nevertheless, today jaemin’s presence is just… too much, too hard to handle.

“yes, i guess? i think they’re really in love, they were kissing like… like there were feelings between them, okay?”

“ohhhhh,” exclaims donghyuck. jaemin leans on jeno’s bare shoulder rolling his eyes because he knows what’s coming next. “because you have kissed a girl now you are an expert at feelings.”

and that’s donghyuck’s way of flirting. he always tries to get any kind of reaction from mark, good or bad, it doesn’t matter. all of them are very aware of donghyuck’s feelings towards mark, but they never dare to say it aloud. they’re just mere witnesses of a tragic love story in which, despite donghyuck’s shamelessly way of flirting, mark is totally oblivious.

“i’m not saying that, but they looked like they were in love,” he claims.

“because of a kiss? just that?”

“shut up, hyuck,” mark replies. “it’s not like you know anything about kissing, so...”

jaemin snorts, hiding his face on the corner of jeno’s neck and jeno gulps. he tenses up and holds his breathe before jaemin starts pulling away again.

“what? i _am_ offended,” donghyuck bursts in disbelief, with a hand up to his chest and eyebrows frowned. “i know a lot, okay? i’ve kissed people before.”

“yeah, sure,” mark deadpans.

“you wanna find out? come here!” donghyuck goes towards mark’s spot and cups his jaw between his hands, attempting to kiss him as the other boy nudges him, yelling and avoiding his lips at all costs.

“kissing is gross,” jisung blurts out of nowhere and, suddenly, every look is on him.

“kissing is great, i can assure you that,” chenle fights him as renjun huffs a short of laugh.

“how can you know that if you haven’t kissed anyone like…ever?” renjun pinpoints.

“excuse me? i’ve kissed a girl.”

“when?” renjun arches an eyebrow, skeptical.

“last year, at summer camp.”

donghyuck’s gasps in surprise, leaving mark’s embrace with prying eyes snapping up to chenle’s amused grin, “why the fuck didn’t you tell us?”

“because you would be jealous,” he attacks.

“i told you i’ve kissed people before, dumbass.”

“still, i think it’s gross.” jisung mumbles, eyes skimming the ground as his fingers play with the fabric of his swimming trunks.

“well, i don’t know anything about kissing but it seems nice,” jeno says and jaemin turns his head, eyes full of wonder. he always does that, look at jeno as if he was the most interesting person in the world and somehow it makes him feel he’s not boring at all. “i mean, everybody likes kissing, so it must be nice. you’re too young to care about-”

“because it _is_ nice,” jaemin interrupts him.

“you all sound like old people. gross.” jisung is stubborn, but jaemin takes the chance to annoy him.

“you’re such a cutie,” he says, sliding to jisung’s side, cupping his cheeks with those soft and gentle fingers. “getting all red because the adults are talking about kissing!”

“get off me!” the younger boy tries to kick jaemin away but he knows too well that once jaemin has you in his arms, it’s the end.

jeno knows that, too.

“i wanna know how it feels like, though,” jeno continues. and it’s true, he really does, at least, to have one experience of kissing someone so he can understand why everybody likes it so much. but he has never really had the chance, because he hasn’t yet found a person with whom he would want to try it out.

he would be lying to himself, though, if he didn’t admit he has someone in his mind.

jaemin, as much as he’s made of honey and sun, is also made of summer breeze. he wonders about how would it felt like kissing his lips, if they would be soft against his, gentle and warm, like summer itself.

jaemin turns around to look up at jeno, but their eyes never meet because jeno’s are lingering on the river like sunrays on the surface of the water, making it glow under their caress.

“you’ll have to wait until some random girl from the band asks you out, like mark,” donghyuck adds.

“hey,” mark fights back, tilting his head up. “it wasn’t just some random girl, alice dalton was the hottest—”

“ugh,” donghyuck cuts him off, grimacing exaggeratedly. “you sound like such a straight guy. disgusting.”

“well, that’s because i am!” he protests as jaemin lets out a loud sigh.

“in conclusion,” he interrupts them, ending the bickering and freeing jisung of his embrace. “you think doyoung and jungwoo are officially dating because you saw them kissing like they were… in love?”

“that’s it.”

“but they’ve only known each other for… barely a month?” jeno says.

“and what about it? it’s summer and you know what they say… summertime is meant to fall in love,” says donghyuck as he unabashedly winks an eye at mark. the other boy just rolls his eyes and chenle bursts into a laugh so high-pitched renjun gives him a soft punch in the ribcage with a wide grin on his face.

“where the hell did you hear that?” jaemin asks with narrowed eyes.

“i don’t know, i think it’s from a song,” donghyuck says as he gets up, placing his hands on both sides of his hips.

“okay, whatever, the last one on jumping is a dip shit!” renjun yells before pushing donghyuck into the water.

all of them follow renjun in a blink of an eye, meeting the sun that lays in the surface of the shimmering water. they make a mess of drops sparkling above their heads. the noise of the cicadas mutes their words and mark’s disjointed screams when donghyuck catches him from his feet to sink him down the water.

the sky is blue, sharp blue, cloudless, waiting to be teared apart. jeno lets the sun caress his skin with vanished hands but feels jaemin’s fingers curling around his arm instead, and turns his head to look at him.

jaemin has a mirthful smile flourishing in his mouth and somehow jeno’s heart clenches a little. he looks majestic, dream-like, as if he had been created by unruly and greedy angels with tender hands daring to challenge the sun: pearly drops falling from the tip of his long eyelashes, shining; the flickering reflection of the water onto his face caused by the sun touching the river, a delighting and broad smile so impossible to stare at. na jaemin is breathtaking, captivating, like the whisper of the sea at sunrise.

they both immerse into the depths of the water.

**☼.**

later that evening, when they come back home while the sky smoothly changes into a mix of violet and indigo colors, jaemin, who has been resting his head against jeno’s back for almost ten minutes on the ride, is ready to go inside his house.

“i was serious, this afternoon,” jeno says before the silhouette of the boy can disappear behind the door.

“huh?” jaemin stops and turns around, frowning a little with narrow eyes splashed onto his face.

“about your idea of writing some sort of notebook of flavors and scents you don’t want to forget about. i think you didn’t hear me before, but it’s great. i love it.”

and he can’t hide the smile that climbs up his lips.

_i love your mind and the way you see things and how you talk to people with that warm tone, you look at them and make them feel special enough to be listened to._

“do you really like it?”

jaemin’s eyes become a sparkle of light. it’s so endearing, his face changes so drastically with the sound of the words that come from jeno’s mouth. he notices the way his own heart inexplicably races at the sight of that radiant but ephemeral smile of his, blossoming at the corners of his face. it’s so big, _so big_, someday it will make his heart stop forever. unfortunately, it dies immediately at the edge of his bottom lip.

jaemin’s eyes hover the ground to avoid jeno’s stare. “don’t you think it's kinda stupid?”

“never.” and he means it.

“…thank you for telling me, jeno.”

**☼.**

when no one wants to go out because they’re too busy playing videogames online while they talk to each other through the microphone, jaemin gets bored and ends up going to jeno’s place to watch jeno play overwatch while donghyuck yells in his ears from the other side of the neighborhood. he just likes to be around people, even though the things he likes to do don’t necessary need the company of others. jaemin just enjoys jeno’s presence. that’s all. and jeno likes it.

he glances at jaemin, who’s strangely quiet today. his face is different, looks like he’s not there at all. he keeps scrolling down through instagram on his phone, stopping by to watch a random video of a puppy from time to time. jeno says goodbye to donghyuck as the other boy calls him a traitor and switches off the computer, releasing his ears from the weight of his headphones.

“you’re so quiet today,” jeno comments with a drowsy voice, filling the silence that has grown between them for the past minutes. he climbs onto the bed to sit beside him and jaemin shrugs his shoulders, placing his phone on top of his belly as he casually lays his head on jeno’s lap.

“i’ve been thinking about the other day, when we went to the river,” he explains, staring at him. “were you serious?”

jeno gasps, eyes widening, “what?”

“the kissing thing you mentioned, that you haven’t done it and you wanna know how it feels like.”

jaemin sounds so nonchalant that jeno is unable to figure out the reason why he’s been thinking about that, of all things. he tries to guess it by looking at the other boy, but jaemin just gives him a contemplative look. jeno shifts, heart thudding wildly.

_this is bad_.

“of course i want to… and yes, i’ve never kissed anyone before,” he says on the spur of the moment, immediately regretting it.

“but i thought you dated that girl from the art club…” jaemin angles his face to the side, avoiding jeno’s stare this time. his voice sounds slightly different.

“don’t remind me… actually, we never kissed,” jeno laughs sheepishly as he lifts his hand to unconsciously bite his nails.

lena was nice and all, she had a giant dog named peter parker that always welcomed jeno when they met at her house. they never held hands nor said they were dating. they got drunk twice, the first time at a party in which he never got the chance to kiss her because she threw up on the porch. the second one, they stole some beers from lena’s house and drunk in a park at night until she was on top of him ready to make out. but despite both of them being horny teenagers who wanted to experience new things, something stopped her before leaning towards him.

“you’re not going to kiss me, am i right?” she realized.

jeno just nodded, ashamed, and she sighed. at that time, he couldn’t understand the reason why he had to get drunk in order to be brave enough to kiss her. he had many chances to do it, but his body did not move. it frustrated him so much, he wanted to share the same experiences his friends had: kiss girls like jaemin does whenever they go to a party, grow up, make mistakes, the usual thing you see in a teenage movie.

but the truth is that he has recently realized the problem was that she wasn’t jaemin; although that’s a story he cannot tell him.

“why?” jaemin inquires.

“to be honest, i never felt like it.”

“what the fuck, lee jeno!” jaemin shifts, burying his fists on jeno’s mattress, tilting his head until they are at the same level. jeno’s breath hitches while they stare at each other for three eternal seconds. jaemin seems to be trying to grasp something from jeno’s wide-eyed look, but he finally gives up. “are you telling me that you haven’t kissed anyone like… ever?” he asks, arching an eyebrow.

“that’s what i said, yes,” jeno answers calmly, tearing his eyes from jaemin’s. “anyways…”

jaemin exhales. “alright." he sits, crossing his legs with a thoughtful expression on his face and nudges jeno’s knee. “it’s fine, there’s no hurry, every person takes their time to do it.”

“exactly.”

“but you said you were curious…” jaemin keeps talking, ignoring jeno’s voice.

jeno sighs, he should have kept quiet when the conversation started, and he would have, if jaemin was another person. but with him everything is _so_ easy. talking about embarrassing things, secrets, thoughts that he would never share to anyone but him. his mind is so used to the feeling of being safe when he’s near him, that he doesn’t cut himself from telling that yes, he’s a little desperate and curious about kisses and that kind of stuff. jaemin is like going to bed at the end of the day with warm and clean sheets in winter, it’s easy to get lost beneath them, to drown a little on your thoughts, when you’re surrounded by someone like him.

so, instead of changing the topic, he keeps oversharing his thoughts.

“you know… i’m afraid i’m missing a great thing. i see everyone enjoying the feeling of kissing someone and i’m here, oblivious. but it doesn’t matter, maybe someday…”

“so, you really do want to know how it feels kissing someone on the lips, right?” jaemin inquires with a slow cadence, tasting every word on his tongue. and then, he unpredictably asks, “would you wanna try now?”

jeno’s heart stops working for a brief moment. he chokes, as jaemin’s eyes hover his, trying to figure out what’s happening inside jeno’s head.

jeno gives him a mortified look, “what are you-”

“what i’m trying to say is that… what if… you know, we kissed. like me teaching you how to do it properly so the next time you don’t leave the girl without a kiss.”

“that wasn’t the re-” he starts but shuts his mouth in the middle of the sentence.

this has to be a joke. it’s impossible. completely out of character. it’s just nonsense. maybe he’s drunk, maybe he’s just out of his mind. or he’s just playing a game and jeno is really dumb enough to not get it. he wants to ask why, why would a friend do that for another friend? does this even happen in real life? friends who kiss each other because they want to teach them how to properly kiss? to know the feeling?

that. is. just. absurd.

but jaemin keeps talking, he can’t shut up. “whatever. i can teach you if you want. it’s just a kiss, like bros, just _bros_,” he remarks. “not a big deal. we’re best friends, right? you can practice with me and because i’m your best friend, i will tell you if you do it wrongly and teach you how to improve your skills. that’s what friends do, they help each other, right?” he sounds more like he’s trying to convince himself and not jeno, but before he can even reply, jaemin repeats, “what do you think, wanna try?”

and again, jeno knows that once jaemin has you wrapped between his arms, it’s impossible to escape from his embrace.

“y-yes, i’d want to.” the words fly out of his mouth and jaemin’s eyelashes flutter in a blink.

that was an impulsive thought that should have stayed inside his head. it shouldn’t have happened, but the words float awkwardly between them until they reach jaemin’s ears and

the boy’s lips stretch at the corners until they form a shape of a grin.

_fucking hell._

“great.” jaemin sounds content, satisfied and, with traces of impatience left in his voice, tells jeno he is the one who has to start the kiss.

“wait, now? like… right now?” he’s going to lose his mind.

“yup,” jaemin nods.

“and i am the one that has to start it? me?!” jeno bursts, feeling something squirming in the pit of his stomach.

_oh god_, he already regrets this.

“calm down, it’s not that deep,” jaemin says with that honeyed-voice that melts jeno’s heart every single time_. i’m pathetic_. “and yes, how would you start a kiss?”

jeno shifts, pressed against the wall, as jaemin glances at him. he’s waiting for jaemin’s laugh followed by a _“it was just a joke, how in the world would i ask you if you want me to teach you how to kiss?”_ but it never happens.

_this is actually happening, and you’re about to fuck it up, lee jeno._

“fine, close your eyes,” he orders. “it’s going to be awkward, don’t laugh, please.”

he should be worried, or at least embarrassed, because he’s going to give jaemin the worst kiss in the damn world. jaemin, his best friend. na jaemin, the boy that makes his heart flutter. he’s going to touch his lips and he’s going to die on them.

jaemin tilts his head as he closes his eyes, patiently. jeno’s hands are sweating now and he doesn’t know where to put them so he just places them on jaemin’s shoulders.

“this is just so i can learn,” he mumbles, and jaemin nods, slowly.

it’s just a brush of lips. the kiss lasts about two seconds before jeno pulls away with trembling hands. jaemin opens his eyes, fond eyes, as he tries to swallow the soft smile that is growing onto his face.

_i’m embarrassing._

“jeno, that’s just a peck.” jaemin’s grin widens and jeno feels his ears are getting all tones of red. they’re burning_._

_this is the worst idea ever._

“i told you i’ve never done it and you said a kiss, never specified what kind of kiss.”

he’s regretting every decision he has made for the past minutes.

“i just thought your kissing instincts were… way better, just that. i was talking about a real kiss, not _that_.”

_a real kiss?_

“i’m just nervous,” he defends himself.

“well, you shouldn’t, i’m not going to judge you.”

the sky is shifting into shades of purple with traces of pink and blue at the corners and jaemin’s eyes darken with the dim light that is starting to settle in the room. at the back of jaemin’s head, he hears the calmly sound of the fan that unfortunately fails to muffle his thudding heart, racing at lighting-speed, putting all of jeno’s secrets at risk.

“look, follow my instructions, would you?” he says it so tenderly, like he always does. maybe he’s just trying not to laugh in his face, but whatever the reason is, jeno is glad that it’s him and not another person.

jaemin removes jeno’s glasses as he climbs on top of him without any kind of warning and jeno’s mouth dries immediately. it’s a fucking desert, and he feels he’s totally unable to kiss him properly now that all his saliva has evaporated in a blink. how embarrassing is that he’s going to kiss jaemin _again_ and this time is going to be worse?

“first, you have to put your hands somewhere, try putting them…” jaemin tentatively says as his fingers warily meet jeno’s long ones. “here.”

it feels awkward, jeno keeps trying to control the shakiness that has invaded his body. he wishes jaemin never notices it while he guides their clasped hands until jeno’s fingers are placed on the back of jaemin’s neck. if he could only breathe…

“don’t be nervous. everything’s fine, jeno,” he says, coaxing him to relax.

_shit. shit. shit. it is not._

but jaemin continues, “now, i’ll hold your face. you have to lean towards me, like you’ve seen plenty of times in movies.” he moves his hands away from jeno’s to graze his fingers upon his cheeks, placing a thumb near his mouth. jeno wants to scream but tries to keep the chill and swallows so loudly he knows jaemin has noticed it because his pupils drop to stare at his throat.

jeno stays still, never moves, waits.

“you need to part your lips slightly, don’t close your mouth even if there’s no tongue,” jaemin explains, his voice sounds so extremely close now, his heart is about to burst. as if he could just keep his mouth closed when he’s having several problems to breathe, honestly. “then, i’ll lean a little…” and so he does. jeno feels the words brushing his lips and his heart almost sets free a million of birds caged in his chest. “that’s-”

but the following words never leave jaemin’s mouth because his lips are melted onto jeno’s.

he instinctively shuts his eyes and a splash of butterflies ascends from his stomach up to his chest. jeno feels a pressure under his ribcage but he doesn’t mind because

jaemin’s lips are. on. his.

and they taste like nothing he has ever imagined.

his lips are soft, gentle, like jaemin’s hands on his face. their mouths move at the same pace; at the beginning he tries to copy his moves but the adrenaline that boils inside his veins starts guiding him blindly and suddenly, kissing is the easiest thing in the world.

jaemin pulls away a little to tilt his head in a better position and jeno feels he’s running out of breath until his lips hover upon his, mildly, like feathers. they are tender, they are summerly-like, damp and warm and smooth and delicate. and perhaps it’s because jaemin feels as breathtaking as he has always imagined, but he can’t help but shoving his fingers in jaemin’s hair, tugging him closer and closer so his eyelashes butterfly kiss jeno’s. and before he can get used to the flavor of jaemin’s mouth, before he can wish he could save that too inside his box and never share it with anyone else, jaemin disconnects their lips, pulling jeno’s face away.

_don’t…_

he already misses him, even if jaemin’s still there, sitting on his lap with red and swollen lips and lurking eyes that are still perched on jeno’s mouth.

he yearns for him.

“well,” jaemin finally says, voice a little strangled. “you don’t need any practice, jeno. you’re perfect, honestly.” there’s a silence that, for once, jeno can’t stand. but before he dares to speak, jaemin says, “hope someday you’ll find a _girl_ that deserves your kisses.”

and something inside him dies when the words resound between the four walls of his room like bells in the middle of an empty square. they crack his heart piece to piece, like autumn leaves under the weight of heavy feet. and it hurts, it hurts more than he ever expected, because he has found that person; and because, of all people in the world, it had to be his best friend.

na

jaemin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you liked it, please don't forget to leave kudos (◍•ᴗ•◍)
> 
> thank you so much for reading! ♡
> 
> [tumblr](https://healsvt.tumblr.com/)


	2. i just don't want to get my heart broke

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning: in this chapter you will have to deal with a very intense and deep jaemin.  
sorry in advance, but that's the way he is (ꈍᴗꈍ)  
[playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0fzWQGnEM7zZlZp9RCfnXn?si=7bjE7MM5RV-TQBtzWYMttQ)

_it’s because of you i can exist, i swear _   
_i just don’t want to get my heart broke_   
_i’m asking for your love._

**☾.**

na jaemin is, of all things, stupid.

and there’re many reasons that support this theory: he rather puts the milk first instead of the cereals, even though he knows it doesn’t make any sense; he also prefers listening to sad music when he’s feeling like shit in order to increase his sadness levels to the top and cry harder on his pillow; when the time of facing an ugly truth comes, he prefers to make up excuses in order to avoid having to talk about it; and whenever things go wrong, he runs away instead of staying and resolve them.

in any case, the biggest proof of his stupidity is his inability to shut his mouth when he definitely has to. if na jaemin has something in mind, even just a sort of shaped idea that is just starting to take form inside his head, rather than think about it in silence like any other human would do; he spills the words like a whirlwind.

and there are some ideas that shouldn’t be just said, at all.

kissing lee jeno, for instance. asking his best friend if he wanted to have his very first kiss with him was, of all things, the worst idea he has ever had. and even though hearing it aloud sounded like an awful idea already, lee jeno said yes and especially because _he_ _did_ _say_ _yes_, jaemin couldn’t stop himself.

so they kissed.

twice,

although the first one was just a warm up.

he had kissed his best friend twice in a day. and after that, he had exposed himself a bit too much by saying those stupid words,

“well. you don’t need practice, jeno. you’re perfect, honestly.”

_you’re perfect._

_like, what the hell?_

to be really honest, the idea of fancying jeno has crossed his mind a few times before. whenever jeno does _that thing_ when his laugh rings near jaemin’s ears with his eyes covered in starlight while holding the night in his pupils. when the shape of those eyes become, somehow, two half-moons as a smile splashes onto his face. when the wrinkles emerge in the pale dunes of his cheekbones as he scrunches up his nose.

it’s in those moments when the thought sneaks inside his head like a shadow, a daring shadow that stays there for a few minutes to make his heart shrink, place that question —“do i like him?”— and finally fades out like sand blown by the tender wind by the shore.

_“jaemin, he’s your best friend. don’t go there.” _and that’s his mind trying to persuade him to forget about those thoughts, because it’s better if you just ignore your feelings and keep living in ignorance, oblivious of the things your heart is trying to tell you.

unfortunately, that voiceless thought hides another truth: that he actually likes his best friend and he will have to admit it to himself sooner or later. _damn it_, were there at least a chance, he would have already paid attention to the signs: his heart skipping a beat when jeno brushes his waist,and smoothly places a hand on one side to pull him closer; when he can’t breathe near him because jeno takes away all the damn air in the world with that calm but raspy voice that pours his lungs with moon dust; when he just can’t stop fantasizing about tracing the moles of his hands and arms and face with soft fingertips as if jeno’s body was daintily decorated with tiny lunar craters waiting for jaemin to discover all of them,

or

when he pictures himself kissing him one more time, just one, because twice isn’t enough and the first was just a warm up.

_fucking hell._

just a few seconds before kissing him, jaemin thought he was going to throw up, his stomach made those weird movements that don’t feel nice at all. _chill_, his mind had told him, and he tried to hide out the agitation that possessed his insides like a sea of eager hands reaching every corner of his body, crying for help.

so, in an attempt to conceal how scared he was, jaemin feigned not being as nervous as him by putting on his best face, pretending it wasn’t a big deal. that way, it would be impossible for jeno to foresee what the kiss was about to tell.

_ah, what a genius, _he ironically thinks now.

honestly, he has to admit he was about to shit himself —embarrassing, yes, but devastatingly true, too— and he isn’t even exaggerating at all, because jaemin knew he was fucking up _everything_. he could see their friendship falling in front of his eyes like a colossal wave sweeping an entire paradise under its weight. years and years of being each other’s first choice; sleepless nights at jeno’s house; long and boring weekends studying together fighting back the urge to hold his hand because we’re best friends and that’s all; stolen glances and muffled laughs against his chest; getting drunk at parties (and kissing other people because you just want to kiss your friend all over his stupid face but you cannot do it!).

and even though jaemin has never let himself think about it until now, he believes it’s time to face the truth, it’s time to listen to those signals inside his head, waiting to be collected one by one.

regardless, at that moment and with the shadow of jeno’s mouth still on his lips, jaemin panicked and in order to prevent his feelings from being exposed, the only thing he could come up with was:

“hope someday you’ll find a _girl_ that deserves your kisses.”

and that’s how you try to fix things… when you’re stupid as fuck.

thankfully, jeno’s mother saved the moment when she decided to call jeno to have dinner. jaemin didn’t have to give him any excuse in order to run away from there, he just left, as expected. there was no awkward conversation, nor an awkward silence. they went downstairs as if nothing happened, jeno’s mother asked jaemin if he wanted to stay to have dinner with them, as she always gladly does, but he —being the amazing actor he has recently discovered he is— told her it was fine and that his mother was probably waiting for him too.

he didn’t say goodbye to jeno, though, nor did jeno.

and now, jaemin can’t stop looking at the window with his bottom lip clamped between his teeth, uneasy. he has done that at least twenty times in the last hour. and even though he does want to go and talk things, for some reason, his body can't move. and maybe, maybe it's because going there, calling jeno, talking about what happened yesterday and wait for an answer when the world is about to tear apart under the weight of his feet, it doesn’t feel like… a good idea, whatsoever.

he isn’t safe anymore, and it hurts him deep inside because lee jeno used to be the safest spot in the planet.

but he knows the moment the conversation starts, he will regret it. how can you put a straight face and pretend you’re not hurt when your best friend is about to break your heart? nor even the best actor can feign a smile at such moment.

so his body won’t move, at least not yet.

_oh god, it’s going to hurt._

although, it already does. he still has those vivid memories of the first touches, how his heart was about to throw itself desperately from the balcony of his ribs. a glint appeared in jeno’s eyes for a brief second, like the glint of a dagger under the moonlight, ready to kindly sink into his heart, making a hole so deep he thought he was going to die. but jaemin courageously placed his hands on both sides of his face, defying death, and jeno trembled under the weight of his palms.

and the worst thing is that jaemin felt so enchanted, almost bewitched, by jeno’s response to his own lips when they finally crashed into each other, like waves hurling against the huge rocks of a vertiginous cliff, that he found himself trembling at the edge. _damn_, jeno’s lips were a mirror of jaemin's. they moved at the same pace, mimicking each other. it was like the reflection of the moon in the sea: moonlight drowning into jaemin’s soul, deeply and quietly and so terrifyingly.

and then, he realized jeno knew how to kiss, _he fucking knew how to kiss_, and hadn’t he known him so well, he would have thought jeno had lied to him about never kissing a girl before. by that time, though, it was too late. the shadow came whispering the words _“stop this, now, or you’ll regret it”_ but jaemin kept kissing him because he was starving for more. he was unable to stop once he had started, as if jeno was balm to his lips, the healing touch of a summer night, the only answer to his craving and pounding heart. because his heart, _oh_, his heart; it was frantic.

and he has never experienced that feeling when kissing girls in the past. not even once. he has kissed so many lips and faces and hands and necks and yet, he has never felt so good until he has done it to jeno. how wrong is that?

_it can’t be_.

afterwards, jeno shoved his fingers, his long and silvery fingers, into his hair and it was too much, too much. he was about to fall down off the cliff, so he had to take a step back, he had to stop himself before jeno could grasp that maybe the kissing lesson was actually a confession of love.

_wait._

_love? _

_it can’t be love, right? _

jaemin’s eyes are fixed in the bare and boring ceiling of his room. unlike jeno’s room that has the ceiling covered in stars that glow in the dark, jaemin’s place is boring and lonely and doesn't resemble the sky. _shit_, he just wants to curl up and spend the rest of the day listening to mitski’s music, maybe for an entire decade. he hugs his plushy (a fluffy pink bear that chenle had given him for his 9th birthday), as his eyes dance warily again to the window. finally, he makes a decision, and his feet decide to make the first move, inviting him to follow their steps.

_it’s going to hurt. it’s going to hurt. it’s going to hurt, but it has to happen, there’s no choice. _

and, at first, jaemin doesn’t notice it. he’s too focused on the way his hands tremble when he opens the window as the mild breeze meets his bare skin. he hears the chirping of swallows echoing in the street and his heart thudding hard in his chest, almost threatening to break the double-glass window. but, on the other side, behind the long and curly branches of the old tree that separates both of their houses, lee jeno is waiting for him, elbows pressed on his window ledge, mouth shaped into a half-moon.

jaemin widens his eyes. _why_, he wants to ask.

“i think we need to talk,” jeno says, but doesn’t sound angry; maybe nervous, but that’s all. “will you come here?”

his voice is delicate, is tender and sweet and maybe he’s trying, he’s trying not to break his heart, trying to save their friendship, someway.

“y-yes,” jaemin babbles.

“great. everything’s fine, right?” he asks, voice almost in a faint trail.

if jaemin keeps sticking out the window like a plant looking for the light, he is going to fall. and perhaps that sounds better than confronting the problem, but lee jeno, of all things, is mesmerizing.

and, as stupid as it sounds, he has that kind of aura that makes you think that maybe it is a good idea to follow him to see what happens at the end of the world.

“of course.”

**☾.**

the conversation starts like this,

“so… about the kiss.”

followed by two voices stepping over each other,

“sorry, you start.”

“no, _you_ start.”

“please,” jaemin begs.

_this is so awkward,_ he cries. he didn’t want to be like this with someone he has crossed all limits of confidence, literally —he has kissed him, what’s more intimate than that? maybe sex, but that isn’t a thought he wants to have right now—.

_jesus, focus, jaemin._

“okay.” a long sigh leaves jeno’s parted lips and jaemin has to tear his eyes away because he can’t stop recalling the image of them kissing just a few hours ago in that same spot of the room they’re right now. “i was gonna say that it was just a kiss. between friends. good friends, i mean, but _friends_. so it doesn’t matter, right?”

there’s a silence that begins with jeno’s last words and it’s filled by jaemin’s incapacity of thinking straight. what is he supposed to say?

“yeah, exactly!” he finally says. he’s a liar, but a liar that doesn’t want to ruin their friendship.

“and we shouldn’t be awkward and that stuff,” jeno continues. thankfully, he never meets jaemin’s eyes, it’s easier to lie when you’re not having eye-contact with the person you would have never lied to, in any other case. it’s easier to hide your feelings, it’s easier to tell him that something that meant so much to you is _nothing_.

“sure.” his voice sounds strangled, so he clears his throat and says, “it’s not a big deal, you know? it’s just a kiss.”

“right, you taught me how to kiss and i thank you for that. but that’s all.”

“exactly! that’s what i was about to say.”

_academy award._

he just wants to die already.

“so, we’re cool, right?”

but before he can say yes, everything’s fine —and i don’t like you, i’ve never dreamt of you, i’ve never wanted to hold your hand, nor wished i've kissed you before—, a tiny rock clashes in jeno’s window.

jeno exhales, rolling his eyes as he moves towards the window. “dude, will you ever learn how to ring the bell?” he sounds pissed, hunched over the window.

“i don’t want to… you know, bother your parents or something.”

of course, that has to be jisung’s voice.

“ok, ok, sorry, it’s fine.” his voice softens. jeno always does that, he tries his best to sound mad or angry when he has to, but cannot keep going and ends up apologizing. honestly, he’s the nicest human in the world. “what do you want?”

“we’re going to play a basketball match near mark’s, with johnny and the others.”

jaemin sighs, exasperated, leaning out the window beside jeno. “guys, have you ever thought of using your phones?”

“i did it, but you didn’t answer me.” jisung isn’t even surprised at the sight of jaemin in jeno’s window. he doesn’t even try to call him at his window anymore, he knows too well where he’s going to be. “are you two coming?”

jeno nods after looking at jaemin to check for his approval.

“cool,” jisung smiles.

“okay but give me a minute, i need to go home first,” jaemin announces while jeno tosses the curtain off his face.

he quirks a brow. “why?”

“you know, i need to grab a hoody and… my things.” jaemin scurries towards the door, trying to sound nonchalant. he doesn’t want to explain much more to him.

while he hurries to the stairs, jeno’s head shows up from the door’s frame. “your things?”

“yeah,” jaemin says already going downstairs. “my bag, my notebook, those things.” his voice echoes in every corner of the empty house.

jeno shrugs, he doesn’t ask anything else, and for once, jaemin is grateful for his silence.

he could never explain to him what he has in mind, that the kiss is still vivid behind his eyelids, that it keeps repeating over and over again, on loop, every time he closes his eyes, like an old film.

and that it may have been the first and last time he will kiss lee jeno, and he knows it’s not going to happen ever again; but, as long as the memory of the kiss is still fresh on his lips, he needs to write it down. because he has realized that jeno has a flavor he wants to keep forever, maybe in a secluded spot of his mind, near the place where the most beautiful memories are; because jeno tastes of salt, cherries and lazy summer afternoons, of clarity and kindness and laughs that shake his heart. because jaemin loves the way summer had felt like on his flesh and bones when he had been kissed by the moon under the envious gaze of the old tree that knows all their secrets; so he’s going to write it down, he’s going to keep that kiss forever,

and no one has to know it.

**☾.**

johnny is tall and witty and maybe he seems cheeky, but he’s the nicest man in the world. people might come up with wrong ideas of him because he has dated many people and knows too much about love and people don't like that, because he dresses as if he didn't care about what people could think of him or it's just because of the confidence he exhibits when he talks and jokes and walks. but jaemin knows he’s not what people think he is; johnny is sensible, johnny is hilarious and wise, and also soft when it comes to his brother, mark lee.

when jaemin saw the two brothers for the first time ever, johnny was teaching mark how to skate. jaemin watched them from the other side of the street while he was waiting inside the car for his mother to come (she was buying this delicious tea from mark’s mother’s teashop that she enjoys drinking in the morning) and jaemin was bored, so bored he kept opening and closing the glove box while “don’t you (forget about me)” by simple minds was playing on the radio.

mark was sitting on the curb of the sidewalk with bruises all over his knees and shins, dirty hands and elbows, and also a big smile on his face while he laughed and clapped at johnny’s jokes as if the bruises didn’t hurt at all. johnny was wearing a cap —one of those ugly ones you buy because you think they’re really cool but with the pass of the time you can’t understand why you thought it was cool in the first place— and he was describing something that mark found really amusing, while casually placing his foot on the skate, moving it slightly side to side. jaemin’s first thought was that he was so tall he could reach the grey clouds that were above their heads that day.

he recalls feeling jealous of mark for a few seconds, having all the attention and support from his brother; something he could never have because his mother wasn’t fertile anymore and he was their little “miracle”.

jaemin’s mother was delaying too much, so he decided to wait for her outside. he couldn’t stop staring at the brothers with narrowed eyes while he closed the door behind, with the windows rolled down. immediately right after, his mother appeared from the frame of the front door.

“nana, come over!” she rose an arm and jaemin shrugged as he walked towards her.

mark’s mother was nice and smiled a lot whenever jaemin’s said anything (later he would find out she is always like that, and honestly, maybe that’s also the reason why her sons are the way they are). they kept talking about their children while jaemin’s mother stroked his hair. he patiently waited for the conversation to end while looking out of the corner of his eye at johnny and mark. suddenly, jaemin’s mother had an idea. she was completely, utterly sure jaemin could get along with mark (she likes to remind him that whenever mark comes home: “do you remember how you didn’t want to make more friends in the neighborhood? you were always around jeno and didn’t care about anything else, but i knew you needed a group of friends”). that day, though, mark was full of bruises and looked like a mess, and jaemin can’t understand why she thought he would be a good influence for him. nevertheless, he will always be glad she did that.

mark lee was a naïve child with braces and round glasses too big for his small face, they kept falling to the tip of his tiny nose whenever he moved his head. everything about him was so little, he didn’t even look his age. he came towards them, almost falling from johnny’s piggy back ride while giggling loudly and silly. jaemin was right, johnny was as tall as he had looked from afar, with those long and slim legs, he had to lift his head up to look at him.

“hey buddy,” johnny greeted him. “this is my brother, mark potter.”

but mark nudged him and whined, “johnny, don't embarrass me, please!”

and the rest is history.

jaemin has always been jealous of his friends’ relationship with their brothers, maybe that’s one of the reasons why he looks up so much to taeyong and taeyong’s words. while jeno likes to spend the whole day with doyoung, playing videogames or just chatting about high school, or whatever they talk about; jaemin doesn’t have anyone like that except taeyong, but only sometimes. and perhaps that’s the reason why jisung loves spending his free time with him, too. they need that kind of person near them, someone who listens to their concerns when they have conflicts with their own friends, a brotherly figure that can help them to develop into better human beings or just to comprehend life better.

a shrilling scream pierces jaemin’s ears. it comes from chenle’s mouth, the boy nudges renjun as he escapes from his hands while a loud johnny keeps hollering mark’s name from the other side of the basketball court. jeno is laughing so hard he has both hands pressed on his stomach, as if he was trying to keep his body in one piece. jaemin smirks, too far away from them to really grasp why donghyuck, jeno and jisung are about to die from laughing. he glimpses doyoung’s smitten eyes enraptured by jungwoo as he attempts to score but fails and jaemin wants to know _how_, how can you know you’re in love with someone?

“hey,” taeyong greets him with a wave of a hand, and jaemin panics because he has his notebook full of thoughts of the kiss wide open in front of him. he attempts to close it hastily with fumbling hands, as if jisung has possessed him.

“don’t worry, i wasn’t going to read-” taeyong starts.

“sorry,” he interrupts him. “you scared me.”

taeyong sits on the bench beside him. “i didn’t know you were interested in writing.”

“i’m not really, i’m just trying something, but i don’t want anyone to read it,” jaemin explains, casually hiding the notebook under the weight of his butt.

“i know the feeling, some things are written only for you to read them, and no one else.”

he likes taeyong so much because he always knows what to say, which words are the best to describe something jaemin can’t grasp to explain.

“right.”

they stay in a calm silence for a few minutes, with no awkwardness between them because they’re too comfortable with each other’s presence.

when jaemin was little, taeyong used to look after him on some weekends when his parents had to stay all night long working. he has seen him grow up, become the person he is today, he has even seen him at his worst moments, too. one night he had to babysit him, jaemin got a stomach virus —and not the kind of virus in which you throw up, precisely—, but his parents couldn’t get there in time, so taeyong managed to bring jaemin to the hospital and spent the rest of the night in the emergency room by his side, holding his hand, until his parents arrived.

at that time, taeyong didn’t paint his nails, nor wear those fancy clothes and never talked about books and poets. he was a shy boy who never shared his opinion with anyone, nor his likes and dislikes, he kept everything to himself. when the old taeyong was still alive, sometimes —and just at the exceptional ones—, he would open up in the dim light of jaemin’s room. it was on nights jaemin couldn’t get any sleep when taeyong would read him the things he had written and said, “please, don’t laugh,” as if someone had laughed before at the things he wrote.

so jaemin never laughed.

there was something in the air of the room, in the stillness surrounding them, that made him feel weirdly touched by taeyong’s words. in all likelihood, jaemin was the only person he was sharing those thoughts with, and perhaps it was because jaemin still couldn’t understand a single thing of what he was talking about, but he felt special, somehow. whenever taeyong read the poems aloud, jaemin felt fascinated by him. he could sense those words meant something so deep they almost tasted as sorrow and ashes. for some reason, they made his heart shrink in pain.

just by listening to him, he could tell lee taeyong was an entire planet waiting to be discovered. he had a whole world inside his head, a myriad of ideas, thousands of songs and words waiting to be exposed to the light of the sun and the rest of the universe. time later, he befriended doyoung and his group of friends, and changed, and developed and opened himself like butterfly wings, so wide and colorful and delicate. still, before all of that happened, the old taeyong only existed in the solace of jaemin's room. at that time, he was only comfortable around jaemin and no one else, and somehow, it made him feel important and closer to him than anybody else, almost as if they were real brothers.

taeyong breaks a big laugh when jeno curses after pathetically missing a score easy to get. donghyuck calls him dumbass and they laugh together again, hard and loud, even if it’s not funny at all. but he seems happy, somehow, and _jeno is always laughing_, jaemin realizes, _he always has a smile for everyone. _

since the day he was born, lee jeno has been such an easy-going person, such a carefree child, so trustful and warm, _so warm_. jaemin’s so glad to have come to a person like him, so lucky to be able to share his days with a soul like his. and maybe if he weren’t that nice, he would have never become his best friend because the day they met for the first time, jaemin was in a terrible mood.

he had recently moved into town and his parents were those kind of parents with an only child who didn’t want to raise him with the typical problems of being an only child. his mother bought a parenting book to avoid the so called “only child syndrome” and made his father read it with her throughout the whole pregnancy. that’s why, once he was born, they tried to put on practice everything they’d learnt. they used to repeat the mantra _“sharing is caring”_ almost every day and they even pushed jaemin a little to make new friends, so he could always be in contact with children around his age.

the day they were finally installed in their new home —the house his parents had always dreamt of—, jaemin’s mother tried one of those theories the book talked about. she believed jaemin would feel lonely the previous days before starting school because he had no friends, so she wanted him to get along with the boy from the house next door. that led to an argument because jaemin was tired of the damn book, and in spite of all his mother’s efforts to convince him, he went upstairs and slammed the door shut. nothing serious, just a tantrum, although he felt so much angriness rousing from every pore of his body. that’s how he ended up seated on the corner of the windowsill with his ankles crossed against the wall.

he was bored but mostly pissed, so pissed he didn’t even want to eat dinner. it was winter and the glass of the window was covered in that familiar mist, the sky looked so white and it was so cold he could sense it was about to start snowing at any moment. he decided to draw things on the condensation of the window, fingertips meeting the cold glass. first, he wrote his name, then his future pet’s name (years later he’s still waiting for his parents to adopt a dog, though) and his father’s name. he was still upset with his mother and decided not to write her name, but he felt immediately guilty and thought he was the worst son in the world after that. from the pitch of his stomach, the remorse tormented him like the ghost he thought that lived in the back of his closet waiting to be found, so he started writing his mother’s name to ease the bad sensation. he couldn’t finish the last letter, though.

through the lines he drew against the glass, from where thin drops were slowly falling until reaching the bottom rails, he saw lee jeno for the first time ever.

on the other side of his window there was a boy with ebony hair, a pair of glasses perched on his nose and a moony smile, leaning out of his own window, shaking his arms to draw his attention. jaemin blinked twice, confused, as if jeno was just an apparition, a ghost.

looking back in time, he still remembers the first impression, the shrilling voice of jeno, the cold in his fingertips, the silvery sky. he didn’t know he was meeting his best friend in the middle of a hoary and wintery day. when jaemin recalls the memory, he likes to picture it as if his life was a movie: the camera zooming slowly into jeno’s face, the muted sound of his voice, his breath condensing into a cloud of fog once he opens his mouth, jaemin turning his head to behold the sight of lee jeno trying to draw his attention behind those bare branches of the old tree. he even knows exactly what soundtrack would have been playing at the back.

_“i'm slowly drifting to you_   
_ the stars and planets are calling me_   
_ a billion years away_   
_ from you_   
_ i’m on my way_   
_ i'm on_   
_ i'm on…”_

because jaemin believes that’s the kind of sound you would hear when you realize your life is about to change forever. but at that moment, he couldn’t hear anything besides the sound of the fabric of his clothes when moving, the groan of the wooden seat of the windowsill, his own breath caught between his lips. the other kid was trying to tell him something, he kept opening and closing his mouth but the sound couldn’t reach his ears because it was muffled by the double glass of his room’s window —winters can be really cold there—, so he hurried to open the window.

“…your name,” the boy finished, snapping his mouth shut when he saw jaemin’s head leaning out of the window.

“what?” jaemin shouted, his cheeks meeting the frosty wind of that evening.

“i said what’s your name!” he repeated.

“huh?” jaemin frowned a little, confused. “my name?”

“yes! mine’s jeno, and yours?” jeno’s cheeks were already flushed due to the exposure to the chilly air, but he didn’t seem like he cared about it.

“huh…” jaemin hesitated. “i’m jaemin, but my parents call me nana.”

jeno has always been the shy and quiet kid, the introvert one, the guy who doesn’t talk to anyone at parties besides his friends, who would sit on the couch between two couples making out with his hands on his knees and an awkward face. he is the kind of person who never asks how much a t-shirt costs, who would rather buy the wrong item than getting a refund, the person that never answers the phone but, immediately after, sends you a text message asking “what did you want?”.

jeno is the far side of the moon, the hidden side people would never be able to meet because he would never let them. he is the face of the moon that doesn't want to be seen, who prefers to go unnoticed. lee jeno is the mysterious and quiescent place of the universe, the blind murmur of the night sky at new moon; the person that would wait for you to ask them what’s their name.

and yet, that day, he was the one who decided to talk to a stranger. it was the first and last time jeno would do something like that.

“nana, that’s nice! my dad told me i was going to have a neighbor of window! aren’t you excited? we can even talk to each other without leaving our houses. mom never lets me meet my friends past evening, but now i have a friend that lives right next to me, isn’t it just great?”

_we’re not friends,_ jaemin bitterly thought.

“do you have a nintendo?” jeno asked, out of the blue.

“what?”

“this!” he went inside and after a few seconds, he lifted his own nintendo decorated with stickers. “do you have one?”

“huh… yes.” jaemin didn’t want to surrender to his charms, he was in a bad mood and, to some extent, he had fought with his mother because of his existence; but jeno has always been too much to handle, too kind, too nice, too cute. “do you like pokemon?”

jeno was slowly, tenderly, patiently, trying to make a new friend, and now that jaemin knows him too well, he appreciates his huge efforts. he was trying really hard, for some reason. he has never understood _why_, why would jeno leave his comfort zone to meet someone so disagreeable as him at that moment (he had asked him once, out of curiosity, and jeno had said “you seemed nice” but jaemin had never bought it).

“…yes.”

“who’s your favorite pokemon?” he asked with that round nose of his covered in pinkish colors due to the cold. _oh god_, he was such a nice child.

“i- huh, blaziken.”

jeno opened his eyes widely, excitement boiling through his veins. “that’s my favorite too!”

“really?”

“yes, i swear!” years later he would find out that, indeed, they have the same favorite pokemon, the same taste in a million other things, honestly. “hey, i have two gyarados at level 87, do you want one?”

jaemin couldn’t understand how someone could be that acutely sweet. he shrugged, less pissed than a few minutes ago, curling his cold fingers around the frame of the window.

“is that a yes?”

jaemin lowered his head, avoiding jeno’s eyes, while biting his bottom lip. for a few seconds, no one talked. jaemin could only hear the sound of the wind whistling by his ears the promise of an upcoming snowfall. he didn’t know whether jeno was that nice to everyone or it was just him, but he realized he liked him enough to want to figure it out in the future.

“maybe,” he smiled, for the first time that evening. it was also the first time jeno’s face showed him the crescent moons he had by eyes.

jaemin’s heart shrinks so hard he might die, and glances at taeyong whose eyes are fixed somewhere in the field. he doesn’t notice jaemin’s stare and decides to search for something in his bag, thin fingers disappearing inside.

“taeyong,” he calls him after he finally finds a can of soda he has brought and proceeds to open it with a click sound.

“what do you want?” he looks at him intently and jaemin feels suddenly so terribly embarrassed.

“h-how do you know… that you’re in love?”

he quirks a brow, “huh? why?” he asks after taking a sip. “are you in love?”

jaemin blushes in a sudden and begs his heart to stop doing _that_ thing.

“no, no!” he panics. “i was just- i don’t know. nevermind.” he brushes the topic off so quickly that taeyong can’t help but grin.

“you should ask to an expert, not me.”

jaemin turns his head and welcomes taeyong’s eyes again, “an expert?”

taeyong laughs in amusement, “johnny!” he calls out. the boys are too focused on the game they don’t notice taeyong’s voice, but fortunately johnny does. he's pressed against the chain link fence with crossed arms, scanning the boys' moves, thoughtful. when he whips his head around, taeyong rises an arm and a smile shows up onto his face. he starts walking towards them.

“this is embarrassing…” jaemin mumbles, shaking his knees, agitated.

he's still a few feet away from them when taeyong says, “this boy wants to know how can you know you’re in love.”

and johnny huffs out a short laugh, almost stumbling over the bench. “really? our jaemin has fallen in love?

“no!” jaemin, for once in his entire life, wishes he could kill taeyong at that very moment. “i was wondering, just that…”

“wondering what?”

“i mean… how do you know you’ve fallen in love with someone?”

johnny smirks the same way taeyong does, with those sparkling eyes that seem to know more than they say. jaemin just wants the earth to swallow him and never to be found. it’s been a bad idea, a fucking bad idea.

“okay,” johnny says, placing a hand under his chin. “so you’re just wondering… about being in love and what does it mean, right?” jaemin nods. “let me think about it.”

taeyong looks at them both, expectantly, while taking another sip and slurping in delight.

“look, i don’t really know what love means, i think that’s something too subjective and complicated,” he explains while taking a seat beside him. “but falling in love... that’s another thing. what i know from my own experience, when you fall in love with someone, you just know it.” taeyong nods in agreement and johnny seems satisfied with his answer, but jaemin’s narrowed eyes don’t. “i mean, when you are falling for someone, or whenyou’re already in love, something inside you knows it. maybe you’re trying to deny it to yourself, maybe you don’t wanna believe it and your head keeps denying it, but the truth is that deep down you _know _it. when it happens, there’s no doubt, i swear. right now you may think i’m talking nonsense but trust me, someday you’ll understand.”

_someday you’ll understand._

but the problem is that he needs to know it _now_, at this very moment, before the day ends and he goes to bed and starts overthinking. before meeting jeno the next day, pretending he hasn’t spent the whole night daydreaming about the damn kiss, musing about the possible reasons why his heart stops beating whenever he thinks of him. he needs to know the reason why he wants to write about jeno, about the scents that remind of him, about-

“oh shit,” taeyong curses.

above them, a sea of grey and plump clouds is covering the entire surface of the sky, threatening with tearing apart over their heads at any moment.

“guys,” says johnny looking at jaemin. “you should be going before it starts to rain, it looks like it’s going to be a big storm.”

his friends are still oblivious, they keep playing and yelling and giggling. the first thunder roars when johnny calls them. _a storm is coming_, jaemin thinks while grabbing his bag. they leave before anyone else —they’ve still ten minutes of ride before getting home—, with their voices trying to break through the noise of thunder with a loud “bye” and jaemin’s hands curled around jeno’s waist, as always.

it’s like nothing had happened, as if they had never kissed.

(hours later, in the middle of the night, jaemin will find out he has forgotten his notebook on the bench he was sitting on).

**☾.**

jaemin has never been afraid of summer storms.

since he was little, the way the sky quickly changes and becomes a mad sea of shadows of all kind of grey shades has fascinated him. when the air becomes chilly and it smells like petrichor everywhere and you know it’s going to pour at any moment so you go inside a place to behold the sight of the sky falling down, in tears, over the world. he enjoys the sound of thunderclaps, people may find them scary, but he believes they’re enchanting because of the beauty the sky holds when it screams and shines upon his head, as if he were right under the crevice of its broken heart, mourning over an unrequited love.

when storms happen, it’s impossible to hear the sound of your own breath between the thunder. jaemin loves them because under the rain and inside a storm, you can hide so many things you don’t want the world to know, all your secrets are safe in there.

he’s glad they have decided to bring their hoodies that afternoon before stepping outside because the day has started colder than the others. and yet, neither of them has seen the storm coming. jeno can’t stop complaining about it while jaemin, at the back, smiles at the touch of the cold and damp air meeting his cheeks with kisses of sad melodies. he closes his eyes and hears the first chime-like thunder resounding along the walls of the house-lined road, like a fearsome choir growing at the end of the horizon that is coming for them, making the roofs tremble. it feels like they’re venturing into the eye of the storm.

maybe they are.

the first drops knock on jaemin’s forehead. afterwards, more drops pounce onto his hands that rest on jeno’s shoulders. jeno curses, again, in a low voice when the drops linger on the tip of his big nose, and mutters something jaemin can’t decipher because he’s too focused on the sensation of the rain cleaning his face.

“fuck, what a time to start raining!” jaemin can hear this time. he opens his eyes.

“but raining is nice,” he says, knowing too well jeno is going to roll his eyes so hard even if he can’t see his face. “summer thunders are the best,” he concludes.

“to you.”

“you’d love them if you could appreciate the beauty in them,” jaemin fights back with a pout that jeno is unable to perceive, but he makes sure he can hear it in the tone of his voice.

“yeah, whatever.”

“storms are pretty romantic, actually,” he continues with his powerpoint presentation about why storms are great and should be appreciated. “there’re a lot of movies where the main characters end up kissing under the rain.”

“because it’s not real, it’s just a movie, but no one likes to get all wet and catch a cold.”

this time, jaemin is the one who rolls his eyes.

“i’m sorry, jeno, but we’ll have to agree to disagree.” and decides to take the chance to slide jeno's hood towards his head, brushing slightly his face with his fingers. jeno shivers as if he got cramps by the touch, and stops immediately, the bike’s brakes making a whistling noise.

“we- i think we should stop somewhere to wait for the rain to die down a little,” he suggests. and it’s definitely a great idea because it’s starting to downpour fiercely.

they find an empty house for sale that has a large porch where they can perfectly hide from the storm for a few minutes. they manage to sit down against the front door, the creaking sound of the wood behind their heads, staining the floor with dirty feet. jaemin notices there’re thin trails of water going down the street like lines of a hand being traced by a fortune-teller. they are sitting next to each other, jaemin hugging his legs close to his chest with his chin placed on top of his knees. drops fall down the frame of the porch and jaemin perceives jeno can’t stop shaking his left leg, uneasy, biting his fingernails. he observes him out of the corner of his eye, confused, but before he can even open his mouth, jeno says,

“na jaemin, have you ever been kissed under the rain?”

the question drops with the same force the rain sinks into the damp ground; and jaemin gasps, startled.

“what?” he believes he hasn’t heard well.

“i was wondering if you have ever been kissed under the rain, you were talking a minute ago about kisses under the rain, so i thought that maybe you have-”

“no, i’ve never done it,” he admits, voice coming a little strangled.

jeno blinks twice, parting his lips. “and would you like to try it now?”

jaemin feels the deja vu sensation climbing up his backbone until reaching his nape and he can’t help but shiver. he wants to open his mouth, say yes and see what happens, but he somehow senses it wouldn’t be a good idea, so he doesn’t know what to say and remains silent. they awkwardly stare at each other, and before jaemin can manage to think of something to say, jeno hurries to clarify his words.

“i owe you a favor, that’s why i was wondering-”

_a favor?_

“but you don't owe me anything, jeno,” he says, because it’s true.

jeno is _too_ nice, _too_ good; the world knows that, so does jaemin. and he prefers to not admit him he’s craving for another kiss, because he doesn’t want to mess up things more, because it would be a mistake,

but

at that precise moment, jeno decides to get up without any kind of warning. jaemin can only blink once before he realizes jeno’s going downstairs in two strides. afterwards, he’s standing there, in the middle of the deserted street, ignoring the fact that it’s pouring as if the end of the world was near.

and lee jeno looks so beautiful, astonishing, when he tilts his head slightly to remove the hood that jaemin had placed carefully on his head a few minutes ago. the next second, it rains angrily over his ebony and rebel hair.

“come here,” he says with that calm voice of his.

jaemin is sure jeno isn't aware of the impact he has on him. he's oblivious of the way jaemin’s body reacts when he moves, like the sea under the moon’s spell, drawing him as a tidal effect; almost like enchanted by a mermaid’s voice.

he decides to follow him because it’s jeno, the boy with that mole near his eye that jaemin has always wanted to touch, the boy with those marble hands that jaemin has always dreamt to hold, the boy with the big nose and diaphanous eyelids he has always wished to cover with kisses.

_god_, he just wants to kiss him one more time.

“fine,” he says while getting up with the help of a hand against the floor.

when he’s only a few steps away from him, he senses the world is trying to warn him, to stop him before he regrets the next words. but maybe it’s too late, maybe he’s just been waiting for an excuse. 

“but you’ll start this time.” he doesn’t even have the time to think twice before the words roll off his tongue.

_get your shit together, jaemin,_ the voice inside his head says, but he decides to ignore it. just for today.

jeno gives him a begging look, he can almost hear the words “please, don’t make this any harder” but he does want jeno to start the kiss this time, he needs to know how it feels to be kissed, to be wanted —even if it's just a lie—.

“you have to show me if you’ve learnt something from last time,” he says while walking towards him and jeno looks mortified, as if he didn’t know what to do. jaemin stops and lets out a long sigh, frustrated. “it’s going to stop raining, c’mon!”

“jaemin,” jeno protests, never moving from the spot. “it’s not going to stop raining at least in the next twenty minutes!”

jaemin exhales and decides to take the next step, if he’s not going to kiss him, he himself will; before the world ends, before he has no excuse to give him another kiss. his feet tread on a puddle, soaking his socks and staining the white nikes with the wet soil emerging between the grass blades. he’ll regret that later.

another step and he will be close enough to touch jeno's face.

finally, his feet find the hard asphalted ground and he lifts his head up to look at him, eyes meeting, eyes charged with something, something he can’t get to place, something that seems like desire.

_it’s just a favor._

_a favor._

he shouts, “just do it, lee je-”

and _oh_,

he has only a brief moment to stare at jeno’s eyes and wonder why their noses are nuzzling before he feels jeno’s lips pressed against his, just the way he wanted: covered in rain drops, damp and soft and fresh.

and even though all your secrets are safe inside a storm, jaemin’s hands feather up jeno’s waist, sliding up his chest to find the way to jeno’s neck, ready to confess all his secrets at once. and even though jaemin loves the rain because he can hide many things under the pouring rain, his heart thuds madly against jeno’s chest, making it impossible to hide his feelings from him. and even though in the middle of a storm the sound of your own breath gets muffled by the noise of the fierce drops, he’s able to hear his own accelerated breath getting lost in jeno’s mouth in form of a labored gasp.

and what surprises jaemin the most is the realization that he can’t hear the rain because it’s only them, their kisses, their lungs taking all the oxygen in the world and jaemin’s ribcage almost tearing appart by the force of his own heart.

jeno kisses with ease and jaemin wonders how someone who has never kissed another person can do that to him. he grabs jaemin by the fabric of his hoody to pull him so impossibly close he wonders if they could really melt like candles even if it’s raining and they are made of flesh and bones. and then, he notices jeno’s tongue unexpectedly breaking through his parted lips, as if begging for permission to explore all the corners of his mouth.

jaemin snaps his eyes open, breathless, suddenly feeling conscious about the way rain pours on them with no mercy. their faces keep dripping, the smell of damp earth fills the air, and every corner of the street is covered in a veil of mist. jaemin’s fingers dance against the soft skin of jeno’s nape, almost fighting back the desire to trace his backbones one by one, as if jeno was a piano waiting to be touched, to be listened to, to make music from him. he invites jeno to kiss him deeper.

so jeno does.

and jaemin might be dying but _who cares. who cares. who cares._

jeno separates their lips slightly as he leans his head to his left to have better access, but stops for a second to look at him in the eye and the whole world stills, time stopping in a blink of an eye, drops frozen in the air; and jaemin swears he can hear their lashes almost intertwined, whispering love confessions. he wants to ask where did he learn to kiss that way but he already knows the answer.

jaemin can’t stand the gap that keeps their mouths apart, like two isolated islands dreaming of the day they can make each other company, and tentatively slides a hand up to cup jeno’s cheek before kissing him harder.

and

_oh, shit._

they kiss for an eternity.

seconds become stretched out minutes that last ages and jaemin doesn’t want this to end because this time, jeno kisses him tenderly, softer, with a slow pace. he kisses him as if he had all the time in the world, memorizing every segment of jaemin’s mouth. jaemin’s fingers trace every inch of skin on jeno’s neck, the profound hollows of his collarbones, the sharp line of his jaw that could gladly cut his fingertips; and wishes he could kiss there too. they take their time to explore each other as if they were made of mysteries, like hidden ancient cities covered by the force of nature, waiting to be discovered.

they kiss as if there wasn’t a huge storm happening over —and inside— their heads right now. he kisses him in a way jaemin thinks he would do to someone he loves, and wishes it was him. he wonders what would happen if he told him he loves him, not just as a best friend, but something else.

_johnny was right, he is always right_, he thinks_, the moment you realize you’re in love you know it_, and jaemin fantasizes with the idea of jeno loving him back.

but only for a brief moment, before jeno disconnects their mouths and jaemin’s hands fall, holding emptiness and air, instead of jeno’s cheeks. from the tip of his fingers, drops fall down the ground.

he snaps out of his trance and reality hits him so hard his stomach squirms as if a snake had squeezed its tail around his innards. _this isn’t a real kiss, but a favor._ it was a kiss for another kiss. jeno thought he owed him something and jaemin didn’t stop him because he was desperate enough to say _yes_. the kiss is a lie. _no_, _not a lie_, because jeno has never implied that the kiss meant something else, it was jaemin and his stupid thoughts the ones that wanted to believe it was real.

he wonders if jeno can hear the noise his heart does when it breaks even though it’s raining and, technically, hearts can’t be broken. it’s almost like that song,

_“and i hear my heart breaking tonight_   
_ i hear my heart breaking tonight_   
_ do you hear it too?”_

the noise of the cloudburst pierces jaemin’s ears when jeno stares at him in silence, eyes widening as he realizes what just happened. he steps back, teetering and confused, drawing away from jaemin, as the moon did once to the earth.

_“it's like a summer shower_   
_ with every drop of rain singing_   
_ i love you, i love you, i love you”_

lee jeno looks as if he truly belonged to the moon, exactly as an impossible dream to reach.

and jaemin can’t stop the tear that falls out from the corner of his eye, resembling the sky. jeno could never know it, though, because the rain is that friend that wipes your tears with its own.

instead, jeno parts his lips, it looks like he's going to say something, something that jaemin isn’t brave enough to hear, so he turns around in the exact moment jeno’s words attempt to leave his mouth, collapsing at the end of his tongue. he knows he could have stayed and face the ugly truth, maybe confess he's in love with him and wish their friendship doesn't end because of that.

but na jaemin is, of all things, stupid; so he decides to walk away, praying jeno doesn’t hate him too much for doing that. maybe he’s just a coward, after all.

_“i could stare at your back all day_   
_ i could stare at your back all day_   
_ and i know i've kissed you before,_   
_ but i didn't do it right”_

jaemin steps onto the puddles as he runs, and never turns back, he keeps running away, away, away; maybe forever. and while the heavy rain wets his face and washes away the tears, he realizes that if his life was a movie, he knows exactly which song would be playing at this very moment.

_“can i try again, try again, try again  
try again, and again, and again”_

  
and again,

and again,

and again.


	3. only you make my heart race

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0fzWQGnEM7zZlZp9RCfnXn?si=7bjE7MM5RV-TQBtzWYMttQ)

_yeah, we were in love but we just homies_   
_ only you, only you, only you_   
_ you make my heart race, yeah_

**☼.**

jeno has been re-watching the office the entire day with his brother. he has been feeling down since the day has started and there’s no better way to cheer him up than that, so they’ve planned a marathon while their parents are on their holidays somewhere in europe without their kids.

doyoung keeps jeno's mind busy while the mixed sound of their laughs resounds all over the room. his fingers are interlaced in the dark locks of jeno’s hair while jeno’s are buried in the bowl of pop-corns. however, as soon as jaemin’s name pops up on jeno’s phone notifications, his happy bubble bursts in pieces.

jeno jumps off the couch, trembling hands grabbing the phone, as he bites his bottom lip. his glasses fall clumsily to the tip of his nose and his brother grimaces, confusion splashed onto his face.

since yesterday's incident, jeno’s been feeling miserable. they’ve avoided the topic the whole day. none of them have exchanged a single word about the kiss or whatever has been on jaemin’s mind since the fucking storm. he's just vanished without any explanation.

jeno kind of senses the reason behind that silence, though, so he hasn’t initiate the conversation either. however, it seems like jaemin has finally come up with something; and now, it terrifies him. his mind starts picturing a thousand of scenarios where jaemin writes about acknowledging jeno’s feelings and that they should talk urgently, and that maybe their friendship is forever ruined by a stupid kiss.

he slides his thumb up through the screen to face the expected message, a message made by words that could break his bones, but there’s only one line that says:

_i've got a cold, sorry i won't go to your house these days :(_

and that’s definitely not what he was expecting, but it still seems odd. something’s wrong with jaemin. his —still, he believes— best friend would never say such a thing, at least not without also sending several cute faces to express how sad he is. the jaemin that always smiles when jeno pulls faces, the jaemin that gladly hums whenever jeno has a question, the jaemin that would have clasped their hands together in the middle of the storm to carry him home, instead of leaving jeno all alone; that jaemin would say:

_guess who got sick! me (╥﹏╥) sorry, i won't go to your house these days... already miss ya ( ˘ ³˘) ♡_

and because he’s sure no one is supplanting his identity, the only reasonable answer to why jaemin would start making up excuses to not meet him has to be because something’s _wrong_.

“are you okay?” doyoung asks, voice in a faint trail.

jeno’s gaze shuns doyoung’s as he mumbles a low, “yeah,” making it impossible to hide the half-hearted expression on his face.

“do you wanna talk about it?” his brother insists with worried eyes framed by wrinkles of concern.

jeno wants to say yes and sit and talk and maybe cry a little because he always does when he’s terribly upset. he wants to hear doyoung’s voice saying “you’re making a mountain out of a molehill, jeno”, reassuring him that things are perfectly fine, that he has nothing to worry about. but he’s unable to tell him the truth.

“i… i just don’t wanna talk about it right now,” he admits.

“oh.”

despite having a tight bond everybody is jealous of, jeno is unable to express what he feels towards people, more so he’s _incapable_ of sharing his feelings and it’s so frustrating. i love you’s are hard to say when you’re lee jeno and somehow the words get stuck in your throat whenever you try to voice them out. he’d like to shower people with love, to open himself more so people around him could feel how much he cares for them, but he _cannot_. unless the person who’s listening is na jaemin, of course, because with him everything is easy: talking, kissing, even falling in love.

“it’s fine,” doyoung genuinely says because he understands whatever reason jeno has to not tell him what’s happening.

but it is not, actually. jeno feels as if he has been fighting demons for almost a decade. he’s been feeling truly exhausted through the whole day and thinking about jaemin’s message is starting to overwhelm him even more.

he doesn’t want to muse it anymore, so he goes upstairs and once he steps into his room, he tries to avoid the desire that shows up inside his head. it kind of persuades him to call jaemin and resolve the problem before it starts growing and complicating things even more, because that’s what a functional person would do, right?

but he’s not.

his eyes can’t help but to stare at jaemin’s window. he wishes he was there waiting for him, as always. but he isn't. instead, jaemin’s curtains are drawn while a soft melody comes from his opened window. it’s impossible to see what is happening inside that room, but he can picture him lying down on his bed, listening to some new playlist he has created especially for his mood today.

jeno doesn’t buy he’s sick, he’s not that stupid, but wants to believe him because that would mean there’s still hope. he imagines jaemin has caught a terrible cold that prevents him from showing up to say “hi” and, for a moment, he feels at peace with that thought.

he leans his body a little so his head is out of the window and the cloudy sky welcomes him. since jaemin ran away, it’s been drizzling; the sun is gone, it has been kidnaped by hands that used to soften his body as if they were made of light. anyway, the sun is now slowly breaking through the thick grey layer of plump clouds, carefully painting it in peachy and rosy shades. an early moon shows up from one of the corners of the mass of clouds and the melody catches jeno’s ears.

he grasps to distinguish some of the lyrics:

_"all good things come to an end_   
_ but i thought that this might last_   
_ but you came alive so fast_

_and when i'm awake i can't switch off_   
_ it isn't the same but it is enough_   
_ (it isn't the same but it is enough)_

_i saw you in a dream_   
_ then it came to an end_   
_ i wonder if you'll come and visit me again"_

and jeno wants to laugh because his life is a fucking joke, honestly.

the town is getting ready for the local summer festival they usually celebrate each year around that date, and summer heat should be warm and sticky on his flesh; but today it’s kind of cold due to the bad weather. it still smells of damp earth and, as jeno rests his head onto his bare arms which are placed on the window ledge, he recalls the vivid image of jaemin turning his face when he was about to confess to him all the things he has been hiding in a secret place of his heart.

the memory is painful enough to make him feel a pressure inside his chest. he should be angry —who does run away after being kissed to later ignore it, as if nothing had happened?— but unfortunately, he’s lee jeno and doesn’t know how to get mad, at least not as long as jaemin doesn't brim the glass and pours jeno's patience over the table.

he still recalls the way jaemin’s hands lightly brushed his face when it started to rain, the electric jolt which felt like lighting hitting his cheeks. his whole body longed jaemin’s touch since the first kiss, and he abruptly stopped, the wheels of his bicycle making a pained noise. he had to make up an excuse, suggesting to go somewhere else to wait for the sky to stop raining. he wasn’t feeling like himself, at all; the sensation of the kiss was still curling around his bones, and he couldn’t brush it off.

he didn’t allow himself to think of how bad he wanted to kiss him again, either.

but as they stepped towards the porch, he beheld the sight of jaemin shining under the rain in iridescent colors. he was glowing in the middle of a storm, just like the sun does in the heart of the milky way despite being surrounded by darkness and stillness and stars that would never glow like him, him, _him_. it was sort of magical and jeno felt bewitched by him. jaemin was covered by glitter, glitter on the edges of his face where the drops had found a place to stay, glitter on his hands that could burn cities, glitter inside his eyes from all the stars whose light he had stolen.

once they sat, the desire of kissing him was heavy on his tongue and strong enough to break through his lips and voice out the words:

“na jaemin, have you ever been kissed under the rain?”

and he hadn't, so jeno came to the stupid conclusion that maybe he was destined to give him that first kiss.

now he craves kissing jaemin, not because two times would never be enough, but because he has already done it enough times to finally realize he wants to keep doing it for the rest of the summer, and the upcoming ones, too. summers that could last months and years and decades, summers that would never be boring but golden and everlasting.

jeno just wants more and more and _more_.

in the heat of the moment, while their lips were dancing along the melody of raindrops, jeno had an epiphany. he has spent so many years trying to deny himself he had a crush on jaemin, so many hours lying in bed at night, thinking of him and how, every time jaemin reached for his skin with his fingertips, he always felt suddenly so weak and fragile under his touch. 

but the funny thing is that, after all, he doesn’t even have just a crush on na jaemin; he is _in love_ with him. and it doesn’t even surprise him whatsoever.

it feels like opening an old trunk stored at an attic that has been patiently waiting to be found. there’s dust floating in the stillness of the room, shining like stars upon the sky, as you stir a bunch of boxes, coughing on your knees, and remove the old sheet that protects the trunk from dust, dust that you carry now on your dirty fingertips. finally, your hands manage to reach that thing you’ve been looking for your whole life and you knew it was there all the time, but simply ignored.

you open the trunk and it feels like coming home.

and just like solved puzzles that open doors to secret corridors, everything clicks, makes sense, somehow.

you realize you've been living with a hole in your heart without even knowing it. and now, you finally understand why the thought of kissing girls never seemed alluring enough to actually kiss them. why you felt an unwillingness setting on your shoulders whenever you held their hands, how your heart never reacted to their touch as if it was made of shriveled flowers that never met the sunrays light.

you knew something was wrong because you never felt complete, at all. a hollowness had made place in your innards, consuming your energy when you tried to make things work. your head kept pretending it was satisfying, somehow, even though the only thing you could feel was that you were some broken human who wasn’t made to love.

so when you open the trunk, and you feel like home, and you are finally aware of that hollow that has shaped your heart; the truth showers on you like late rain in the aftermath of a summer storm: you don’t like girls, you don’t want to hold their hands, nor kiss their lips, nor interlace your fingers with their hair locks, nor you want to hide your face in the nook of their necks.

the truth is that you like boys so much, _so much_, they bring sunrays to those dead flowers to make them bloom again, making your heart race for the first time ever, as well.

that’s why, when jeno decided to close the gap between their mouths, pulling closer to jaemin with a kiss, something inside him exploded as if his heart was filled up with rivers of sunrays. it felt like fireworks sparkling at a summer night; sparks running through his veins from the tip of his fingers; sparks spreading along his arms; sparks beneath his ribcage and deep down inside his chest; _sparkles_. so he kissed jaemin with all his heart, enjoying the way his entire being felt while doing it.

but if jaemin’s lips had stayed against his for too long, jaemin could have sensed jeno glowing in the dusk, as if made of starlight, and he would have realized then, that jeno loves him in a way friends don't, that he loves him in the way only lovers do. and precisely because of that, he had to pull away.

but their gazes met and on the spur of the moment, a knot untangled down his throat, willing to release the words “i think i love you” as if he had no control over his own body anymore. in any case, before that could even happen, jaemin was already running. far away from him, further and further until the only thing jeno could discern was the shape of his body through the misty veil of rain as lighting crashed in the horizon, and the ground trembled —or maybe it was only his legs—.

that was the day na jaemin stole all the light in the world and took it with him as he left, blindly, in the middle of a storm.

jaemin’s window is still open, the curtains swinging due to the dim air that also shakes the tree’s leaves and tosses jeno’s hair all over his eyes. there’re five tiny rocks placed on the window ledge that he has collected in the past in order to use them whenever he needed to call his friend in the middle of the night. jaemin has his too, placed meticulously on a row.

jeno could throw one now to call him, hear his voice, see his face and ask him why the kiss felt so real when they were just pretending it was; but he doesn’t, he goes to take a walk, instead.

**☼.**

after cloudy days, the sun can make its comeback in the most beautiful ways possible. the neighborhood gets gold plated beneath the touch of the last sunbeams at sunset, even the air feels somehow dreamy and mesmeric. the windows and walls of the houses reflect the light and jeno’s skin gets covered in that goldish shine.

after wandering around, he decides to venture towards taeyong’s house through a shortcut jaemin had showed him many years ago the first time they went to meet him. and when he arrives, taeyong is sitting on an old couch with an arm rested over his propped up leg, and turns his head when he hears close steps approaching him. he’s been poring over a book which he holds between his thin fingers and uses the index to mark the place where he was reading at. his eyes finally glimpse jeno’s face through the gaps between the bars of the rail of his porch. there’s music at the back coming through the window of his living room and a tiny dog welcomes jeno barking annoyingly and bouncing onto his legs. she’s called ruby.

“hey,” jeno says petting the dog behind her ears as she continues barking and happily shaking her tiny body.

taeyong seems busy, a mess of papers, a laptop and two empty cups of tea are spread all over the coffee table. if he was someone else, jeno would be expecting to be kicked out immediately but luckily, taeyong would never do that. he’s that kind of person that will always welcome you, maybe invite you to drink some tea, prepare some toasts and also let you to choose the music.

“jeno!” taeyong exclaims. “i wasn’t expecting this visit.”

jeno’s eyes skim the ground, “i was taking a walk and somehow i ended up here,” he explains, almost feeling guilty because of the intrusion. “what are you doing?”

if taeyong can grasp there's an actual reason why jeno has been hovering until he has showed up at his place, he doesn’t say it, just rises the book to show him the cover.

“i was writing an essay about a poem, but i’m not inspired enough so you’ve come at the perfect time,” he says while ruby climbs up on his lap. “c’mon, sit with me,” he invites, making room for him, tossing some pens at the side. “should i make you some iced tea?”

the mellow tickling of wind chimes mixed with the cricket’s melody catches jeno’s attention, who scans taeyong’s porch as if he hadn’t been there before. there are some plants hanging from the ceiling, others at the corner, near the open windows of the living room, and a tiny lemon tree on a pot. the dim lights are already on because the last sunrays are slowly fading out behind the mountains. the air smells like wildflowers and cinnamon and it feels warm enough to loosen jeno's body up. he feels kind of relaxed by taeyong's presence and the things that surround him, and he couldn’t be more thankful.

jeno shakes his head, “i’m fine, i swear, i was just passing by.”

“okay, okay, just tell me if you need anything.”

“i’ve never read poetry, honestly,” jeno admits, sitting right next to the older boy.

“well,” taeyong says, closing the laptop and making himself comfortable on the couch again, “you’re a lucky man, then, cause you’re about to do it. i was reading this one, wanna try?” and lends him the book.

jeno clears his throat, a bit nervous, and reads aloud:

_“to find a kiss of yours_

_what would i give_

_a kiss that strayed from your lips_

_dead to love”_

his heart skips a beat. he tries to conceal the effect those words have on him. he feels somehow exposed, but taeyong doesn’t seem to notice it, and continues,

_“my lips taste_

_the dirt of shadows_

_to gaze at your dark eyes_

_what would i give_

_dawns of rainbow garnet_

_fanning open before god—_

_the stars blinded them_

_one morning in may_

_and to kiss your pure thighs_

_what would i give_

_raw rose crystal_

_sediment of the sun”_

jeno flushes at the last verse and can’t help but to think of jaemin and _only_ _jaemin_. it feels as if the poet had been inside his head, collecting all the secrets he had always kept hidden from others to see —from jaemin, foremost—, and wanted to expose them so everybody could read them.

“who wrote this?” he asks.

“federico garcía lorca.” taeyong speaks in his best spanish accent and gives him a reassuring smile when he sees jeno's confused face. it’s the first time he hears that name. “he was a very famous spanish poet, he even lived in the usa,” taeyong continues. “but he was murdered by nationalists at the beginning of the spanish civil war.”

“murdered?” the word tastes poisonous and painful on his tongue.

this time, taeyong’s smile dies at the thought. “because he was gay.”

and it hurts him, hearing that and being reminded that history has made people like them terrified of their feelings, terrified of the reactions of strangers towards their feelings, feelings that are pure and nice and genuine, feelings that shouldn’t matter to anyone else except the people involved in them.

“that’s so cruel,” he says.

he remembers how terrified he felt when doyoung first came out because he thought high school would become a nightmare for his brother. his parents were also worried for the future things he would have to face, such as hate and disgusted looks from strangers on the street, or things even worse. because doyoung, once he'd start dating boys, would have to bear the bothering presence of fear attached to his shoulders every time he wanted to take his boyfriend’s hand in public.

jeno is certain feelings are scary for everyone, but when his are what society expects to be the “wrong” ones, he believes that's even more complicated, more terryifing. it's more difficult to admit them to yourself, to accept them, to tell to the world; even if they're perfectly natural.

but there're people willing to hear them, too.

“taeyong,” he says, abruptly, hugging the book close to his chest, “i… i want to tell you something,” he starts and the words roll off his tongue with ease like a whirlwind that carries things he has wanted to say aloud for days; things that were burning his innards, words that he wishes he could have said before, things that doyoung should have heard the first, too. they are made of fears and doubts, “i’ve kissed jaemin. twice. it started just like… him teaching me. i mean, just a friend helping another friend, does it even make sense? i don’t think it does, but… i think i’m in love with him and- and honestly i don’t know anymore… the last time we kissed i swear it meant something, it has to because i swear that wasn't a kiss between friends. but then he ran away, without saying a word. and now he says he’s got a cold and i know deep down he’s just avoiding me and i’m worried, i’m… i can’t stop thinking about it because to me it felt… right. it was… great? but maybe for him… maybe he’s just not interested in me? i believe i’ve scared him because i let myself go way too much and he realized i liked him or something, it must be that. so now he’s avoiding me and i think it’s because he doesn’t want to tell me he doesn’t feel the same, because if that happens then our friendship… it will be over, right? am i overthinking? i- i just wish we never kissed, honestly. everything would be easier if i just was oblivious and-”

“hey, hey,” taeyong calms him, stroking his shoulder and taking away the book to place it on the coffee table. “take a deep breath, you’ve just talked more than in your entire life, jeno.”

“i’m sorry i’m bothering you with something that isn't related to you at all, and i know i should be doing this with my brother instead, because he’s my brother, but-”

“it’s okay, jeno, you’re not bothering me. look, i think you’re just making assumptions over something you don’t know, jeno. you’re imagining the worst case scenario and replaying it in your head over and over again until hurting yourself in a useless way,” he explains. “i know,” taeyong sighs, “i know, you can’t control that, but overthinking comes from miscommunication. you need to talk to him.”

“and what if he doesn’t want to? he’s making up excuses to avoid having the conversation and-”

in that moment, ruby interrupts them with frantic barks, jumping off taeyong’s embrace. she excitedly runs to the spot where jisung is standing with the familiar box in both hands and a confused look.

“jeno?” jisung’s eyebrows shoot up in surprise.

“jisung?” jeno replies, as shocked as him.

“what are you doing here?” he hesitatingly asks, making his way through taeyong’s porch.

“i would asked you the same question but i know you too well.”

“jisung!” taeyong exclaims, lifting the corners of his mouth. “i thought you weren’t coming today; ruby has missed you.”

“i wasn’t, actually, i was going to jeno’s house but" and points at him with a tilt of his head, "i saw you here.”

“what? why would you go to my house?”

jisung exhales, takes a seat on the porch’s floor before opening his box and grabbing a notebook that jeno isn’t familiar with.

“i found this the other day, on the bench. someone has written something about you, so i thought you may know the person who this belongs to.”

“about me? huh, i have never seen that before.”

“that’s jaemin’s!” taeyong shouts, taking away the notebook from jisung's hold.

“what?” both of them ask, looking at taeyong with confusion in their eyes.

taeyong hesitates, pressing up the notebook against his chest, before saying, “the other day, he was writing this but he told me he didn’t want anyone to read it.”

something inside jeno’s head clicks immediately. he notices jisung fleetingly looking at jeno, and wonders what is written inside that has his friend so confused.

“shit,” jisung gulps. “i didn’t know, i swear!” he screams, as if jaemin was there hidden somewhere near taeyong's house, ready to scold him.

“don’t worry, jisung, i'll make sure to return it to him, okay? i’ll explain everything to him so there’re no misunderstandings,” taeyong reassures him.

“don’t tell him i’ve read it, please, he would kill me!”

_why?_ why would jaemin kill jisung for reading some memories of flavors and scents that jaemin wants to keep forever? and why is jeno’s name in there? does jaemin also have memories with jeno linked to a flavor or scent?

_does he?_

he can’t help but ask, almost desperately, “why is my name written inside?”

“i’m not telling you,” he hurries to say. “anyway, you didn’t tell me why you were here in the first place, so...”

jeno grimaces. “i’m not telling you, either.”

jisung pouts before starting to laugh, and when the tickling of wind chimes resounds with the sway of fresh breeze this time, jeno’s mind gets filled with hope. a hope he shouldn’t actually have because the truth is that he doesn’t know what jaemin has written about him, and it could be a million things; memories of them, their shared childhood, first meetings, first days of school, whatever, honestly. but, in a tiny but lambent hidden spot of his mind, he wonders if jaemin could have written about a secret kiss that no one should know about, and tries to grasp the reason why he would do that if it didn’t mean anything, at all.

**☼.**

perhaps working at an ice cream parlor is the dream of many children, but it’s definitely not mark’s. the boy looks completely bored: a hand placed under his chin, heavy eyelids fighting the urge of falling asleep, while he waits for a new client to come. however, when he glimpses the familiar faces of his friends taking a seat on a table by the window, he runs to greet them with shining eyes, like an excited puppy.

“what are you doing here?” he wonders as a broadly smile blossoms all over his face. he’s wearing that stupid sailor uniform that matches that stupid blue hat he hates so much (those were mark’s first words about his new part time job that summer).

“we were bored and needy for air-conditioner,” donghyuck lies.

“we wanted to keep you some company,” explains jeno.

“but we’re not ordering yet,” renjun continues. “we have to wait until jisung and jaemin arrive.”

mark raises his brows, “jaemin? wasn’t he sick?”

“seems like he’s not anymore,” chenle informs as he extends one arm along the couch, looking through the wide window from where the parking lot can be seen.

mark turns to look at jeno with furrowed brows. he points at him and says, “then why didn’t you come with him?”

he wants to die, just a little. jeno exhales, takes a long breath and tells mark the truth.

“…dunno. he didn’t tell me.”

jaemin hasn’t talked to him today, nor yesterday, actually he hasn’t heard from him since that last message he sent him, five days ago.

“i thought you were like… inseparable.”

“well, we’re not,” he bitterly replies.

“they’ve fought,” informs renjun as he leans out onto the table to grab the menu.

“what?” mark exclaims.

“we didn’t!” jeno denies, giving renjun an inquisitive look.

“he’s been avoiding you, you told me!” renjun argues as he gestures moving the menu up in the air.

“i-”

the sound of the door opening makes them all to turn their heads. a couple enters with their hands interlaced and mark takes a breath before faking his biggest smile.

“i’ll come back,” he says before going away to attend them.

“if you didn’t fight, then what happened?” chenle inquires while donghyuck steals the menu from renjun’s hands and the boy protests.

“i don’t know if he’s avoiding me, those are just assumptions i made,” jeno explains. “i just don’t want to talk about it, so please, pretend i didn’t tell you.”

“we’d better do it because they’re coming,” points donghyuck with the menu as jisung opens the door.

the younger boy is carrying his box of collected things under his arms, as always, with jaemin following him, grinning as they talk. jaemin’s welcomed by everyone with big smiles and teasing jokes about the origin of his cold. his eyes avoid jeno’s and he can’t help but feel hurt.

it’s been almost a week and neither of them has tried to initiate a conversation. and even though he’s too afraid of whatever jaemin could say about that kiss, even though he even has imagined every kind of case scenario in which jaemin tells him he knows he’s in love with him and he rejects him, even though he has seen jaemin kissing girls too many times for the last two years to ever believe he would like lee jeno; his name is written inside jaemin’s notebook, a notebook he wouldn’t let anybody read, as if whatever that was written in those pages was a precious secret nobody should know.

jeno is jaemin’s secret and he wants to know why, because at this point, he’s desperate enough to cling to an idea that seems tempting, luring: the idea that na jaemin might like him, too; and he doesn’t want to have his hopes up for nothing.

they definitely need to talk.

mark finally comes back as jisung takes a seat next to chenle and everybody follows jaemin’s moves with their eyes when he sits as far as possible from jeno. and when he does that, all hope dies in the pitch of his stomach, clenching his body like a fist crashing into his flesh.

“what are you going to order this time?” mark asks as he shoves his fingers through his dark hair to fix it before putting that ugly hat again.

donghyuck pretends he doesn’t like it, but when mark goes away with their orders, he casually comments on how cute he looks in it.

chenle clicks his tongue and says, “you’re such a fool, hyuck. if you keep doing that, he’s never going to fall for you.”

jeno feels he’s been called out and looks at the rest who seem to have suddenly become as tensed up as bowstrings. jeno can tell by their faces that none of them were expecting that comment ever to be voiced out, because somehow they all have agreed on not doing it. sooner or later it had to happen, though.

“what the heck-” donghyuck chokes, widening his eyes.

“i’m just saying, your way of flirting is… a mess,” chenle proclaims.

“chenle, if you don’t shut up…” his voice sounds threatening but chenle rolls his eyes.

“he’s right, though,” renjun agrees, and that’s when, for once in a lifetime, everyone feels brave enough to nod in unison. donghyuck shows the betrayal on his face. “you’re a fool, lee donghyuck.”

“first of all, i am not flirting! second-”

“he’s coming, shut up, dumbasses!” jisung warns them stressed-out, gesturing with frantic hands to shut them all as chenle mumbles, “ah, cute” and jaemin snorts.

“we have run out of green tea flavor, jaemin,” mark informs, unware of the tense atmosphere. “which other flavor do you prefer?”

“shit,” he curses. “okay, just… what jisung ordered,” he says with a pout from the other side of the table.

when mark disappears, all of them turn to stare again at donghyuck, who is trying his best to not fight them back, closing his hands in fists, tight-lipped.

“we’re just trying to help,” chenle says.

“fine, don’t do it, okay?”

“you’re scared of him rejecting you, am i right?” jeno’s heart stops for a second before he notices the tenderness in jaemin’s voice and for the first time ever, donghyuck seems devastated.

“well,” the boy sighs, eyes hovering the table.

“it’s hard, isn’t it?” jaemin insists, a hand curling around donghyuck’s wrist.

jeno is trying really hard to grasp the reason why he’s saying that, he senses jaemin is sending him some kind of indirect but _what kind of indirect is that even? what do you want me to do, jaemin?_

“yes,” donghyuck finally admits, defeated, fingers playing with the edges of the table. whenever things get a bit serious, lee donghyuck is the first one on brushing the topic off, the first person that would say something stupid to ease the awkwardness surrounding them. this time, however, he doesn’t. he sounds actually pained, and that’s what shocks jeno the most. “he’s so fucking straight, man,” he pants.

jeno doesn’t dare to say a word even though he’d like to confess that he understands his pain, that the weariness of wondering what would happen if he told jemin about his feelings is going to kill him soon. no, it’s actually devouring him from the inside out right now, at this very moment, while jaemin is pretending everything is fine. if they could just talk about it, maybe… _maybe_ this uncertainty would stop forever, or it could even be a place for hope. hope, yes, _real hope_, not just a name written on a notebook, but an actual reason to believe that the kiss meant something they were too afraid to convey with words.

“he’s coming back again!” renjun announces, and everybody fakes a smile.

“and…there you are,” mark says placing the cups of ice cream on the table. “i’m sorry i’m not with you guys, but i need to get paid. my break starts in a few minutes, wait for me,” he singsongs; and there he goes again, back to work.

“so,” jaemin continues, tossing apart his ice cream to look at donghyuck in the eye.

jeno takes a sip and everybody waits for donghyuck’s answer.

“so,” donghyuck repeats, avoiding jaemin’s stare, never touching his food.

“are you gonna tell him like… some day?”

“you think i’m that dumb, jaemin?” donghyuck glances up to him this time. “he’s fucking straight, i don’t have a chance!” he whisper-screams.

“why don’t you try? maybe you’ll be surprised,” jeno suggests, and the first melted drop of donghyuck’s ice cream falls onto the table. all his friends turn their heads to look at him.

_oh, no._

he has a bad habit of not holding back what he’s thinking at inappropriate moments like this one. had he thought twice before starting to talk, he wouldn’t now have jaemin’s eyes fixed on him.

jaemin’s wearing a black t-shirt one size bigger that lets his collarbones stick out shyly through the fabric. he does that thing with his face when he rests his head on his hand as his cheek is squeezed in the cutest way possible. he scrutinizes jeno with narrowed eyes as if he was really trying to read his mind. but jeno’s head is somewhere else, recalling hazy kisses and light hands splaying all over his chest and neck.

_focus, jeno._

even though an invisible layer of awkwardness has placed between their bodies, jeno is unable to stop thinking of kissing him again. and it’s frustrating to the point he starts wondering if he could survive through the rest of the summer with just the memory of a kiss. it’s been only five days, yes, but an eternity without kissing him doesn’t sound nice whatsoever. not if every time he lays his eyes on him he recalls the sensation of jaemin's lips tenderly kissing the corners of his.

because perhaps, if there were another chance, he could try kissing his cheeks too, the edges of his gold powered face and finally slide down to the curve of his jawline and trace it kiss by kiss, while sinking his thumbs into the depths of his collarbones; until both of them merge completely.

_ah, fuck._

“it’s not going to happen, jeno,” donghyuck concludes and for a second he believes he has read his mind and panics before recalling what they were talking about. donghyuck is just answering to his suggestion, no one is able to read minds.

_jesus, chill._

mark arrives at that precise moment and the conversation drastically changes. everyone shifts in their seats and make faces that mark finds really weird because he grimaces in confusion. he’s about to comment something related to that when chenle saves the day by saying,

“xuxi’s party is tomorrow,” and mark nods. the rest loosen up, finally breathing.

“ah, yes, johnny told me,” he says while he eats an ice cream too, sitting beside donghyuck.

“i think we should go,” renjun suggests. “jaemin, i can’t believe you’ve missed the local festival.”

“being sick isn’t something you just choose, right?” chenle ironically comments.

but mark adds before jaemin can even reply, “yeah, we should go and watch the fireworks, last summer it was amazing, xuxi’s house has great views.” he sounds nonchalant as he cleans off a drop from his mouth with his thumb. and it’s a great idea, so all of them agree. “oi, donghyuck! your ice cream is melting,” he points out.

and that’s when donghyuck does _his_ _thing_, because even though mark is fucking straight, even though he’s impossible and a fool who’s completely oblivious of his feelings, the truth is that donghyuck _cannot_ stop liking him.

“maybe you’re too hot, mark lee,” he replies, and mark rolls his eyes.

**☼.**

when wong yukhei was selected as captain of the basketball team, he threw a party so big no one could stop talking about it for the following days. since then, parties at yukhei’s house have become more and more common. every summer he takes advantage of having the best views of the town to throw amazing parties that no one likes to miss. so since the start of each summer, he prepares the most expected party of the year and creates concepts in order to prevent people from ever getting tired of them.

this year, the so called yukhei’s summer party has an 80s concept.

when jaemin comes out of his house, jeno is sitting on the stairs of his porch and the weather is shifting into fresh night air. doyoung has the music already playing on their parent’s car to “get into the mood” with an 80s playlist that jaemin had recommended him that morning.

he has been playing it on loop all day long because “i want to know every song that might sound tonight, okay?”. jeno wasn’t that excited, however, and shrugged his shoulders while his brother chose jeno’s outfit which consists of wearing a green plaid flannel t-shirt, a pair of vintage denim jeans, white socks and black shoes that he didn’t know doyoung owned.

“uh, yes, i haven’t decided yet which outfit fits them better,” he said while styling jeno’s black hair like the picture of leonardo dicaprio he had searched on google (“but that picture is from 1994, doyoung,” “no one will notice, let me do my job").

jaemin’s honeyed hair brushes his when he sits next to him, hip with hip, mumbling a low “hey”. things are still awkward between them, but it seems that, at least, he can say hi. he can’t find any solace in that particular thought, though.

jaemin’s hair is styled like jeno’s, with the hair stripe slightly aside, and it’s the first time he’s wearing glasses. he stretches out his legs covered by dark denim jeans as he ties his black old converse he doesn’t use since he passed that emo phase.

jeno notices he looks rather different, which is a natural thing because they are wearing vintage clothes and all, and yet, he seems unusual in a way jeno can’t grasp to explain. he’d like to be able to place a strand of hair behind his ear and tell him he looks good because it’s a perfectly natural thing to do; but he doesn’t. jaemin used to be the easiest person to talk with, and now jeno is scared of every word that he pronounces near him. he decides to stare at his feet until renjun's arrival.

“what did you do to your hair?” renjun asks when he shows up, raising his brows as he points at jaemin’s head.

“i’m wearing an outfit inspired by river phoenix, so the hair is important,” jaemin says by way of explanation as he gets on his feet. “and yes, the glasses are also an important complement for this outfit,” he says with a smirk on his face before renjun can ask him about that too. “and yours?” jaemin asks jeno.

“mine?” he sounds surprised, he can’t help it, it’s the first time they exchange words since that… text message which jeno didn’t even reply to. “i didn’t know what to wear, so doyoung chose it,” he admits, avoiding jaemin’s eyes and missing the tilt of his lashes behind the plastic of his specs.

“bro, haven’t you watched stranger things?” renjun voice comes between them and jeno suddenly remembers he’s also there.

“renjun,” shouts doyoung behind renjun as he rolls the keys of the car between his fingers. “fucking finally! nice outfit, jaemin,” his brother approves as he opens the door, inviting them to get into the car.

jaemin opens a pleased smile on his face. “thank you,” he says, and jeno recalls the last time those words were directed to him. if he just could go back in time…

“c’mon, kids, johnny’s already there!”

the ride to yukhei’s house is more awkward than he could have ever imagined. jeno sits beside his brother and notices that jaemin keeps discretely looking at him through the rear-view mirror. jeno feels he’s going to explode at any moment. _we need to talk_, he repeats in his head, searching for the necessary courage to be able to stop jaemin before entering the house when they arrive and also spit those words at him, never letting him go again.

_we_

_need_

_to_

_talk._

but jaemin manages to skitter himself through the mass of people before jeno can reach out for him. instead, he feels someone grabbing his arm, throwing him to turn around.

“jeno,” renjun calls him, “i still don’t know why you two fought, but you _need_ to fix it.”

so renjun has also noticed the tension between them.

“we didn’t-”

“if you’re not gonna tell me what happened, it’s fine, but fix it, jeno. this is so fucking awkward... you guys _are_ best friends. i’m sure this can be solved.”

_yeah_, things can be solved by talking. feelings, however, are way more complicated.

“i’ll try,” he fakes a smile and renjun squeezes his arm, caressing jeno’s wrist with a thumb as a way of showing some support. always soft, always nice whenever jeno needs him.

yukhei’s house is overflowed with people jamming to the same music doyoung’s been doing all day too. there are purple and red lights that mingle with bluish shades, painting the people’s faces with vivid colors as they dance. “self-control” by laura branigan resounds all along the walls of the roomy living room full of teenagers wearing stolen clothes from their parents’ closets and jeno searches for jaemin’s honeyed hair in the crowd.

he only finds taeyong with plaid trousers matching a blazer, talking to a boy with red hair in a ponytail as he holds his plastic cup with fingers —all of them— decorated by rings. numerous silver necklaces hang from his neck. near him, johnny, mark and donghyuck are chatting with jungwoo that is already entangled in doyoung’s arms. jeno and renjun make their way towards them as chenle and jisung finally show up nudging through the already sweaty bodies of people dancing in the room. yukhei approaches them with a loud _MY FRIENDSSSSS_ and a broadly smile on his face.

“there’s alcohol at the kitchen, go serve yourselves,” he says.

“i’m not drinking tonight, gotta drive and all,” doyoung says as jisung, renjun, chenle and jeno start moving towards the kitchen. “not you, jisung,” doyoung places a hand on his shoulder before he can escape.

“why not?” he nags, furrowing his brows under the purplish lights of the living room.

“you’re too young.”

“so is chenle!”

chenle runs over him to tell him to shut up while screaming, “but you’re a baby!”

“i’m tired of being the little one,” he complains.

“someday you’ll grow up, just wait,” mark says, drink in hand. johnny looks like he’s about to say something but jisung is faster and replies,

“i’m taller than you, though.”

“oi!” he protests while they all burst into laughter. jisung seizes the moment to skitter from doyoung’s hard look, running to the kitchen to serve themselves some drink. chenle spills some vodka on jeno’s hand and they giggle.

“you’re not drinking, baby,” chenle repeats when the younger moves his cup closer.

jisung lets out a long sigh.

the kitchen is a mess of boxes of pizza, red plastic cups and people, some eating in a corner, others smoking and chatting and dancing —at least, that’s what they try— and a couple absorbing their faces against the fridge while jisung awkwardly tries to grab a bottle of orange juice, already giving up the idea of getting drunk tonight.

“where is jaemin?” jeno asks.

chenle shrugs, “dunno, he’s lost.”

if things weren’t different, jaemin would be with them right now dancing with a hand placed casually on jeno’s waist while singing loudly along chenle's voice. he would get drunk enough to later disappear through the clouds of smoke forming skies above their heads. and because jaemin is a natural flirt, he would get lost for an hour or two. he would probably be busy meeting new people and making them laugh hard, casting spells that no one could dodge because he’s a witch, a mighty witch who knows too well the effect he has on people, how they surrender to his own charms almost immediately: faces softening, smiles widening, followed by sweet words.

sometimes, they steal kisses from him and vice versa and jeno observes the scene from the other side of the room, drink in one hand, bottom lip clamped between his teeth and lurking eyes wishing things he wouldn’t like to admit. then, jaemin would come back and rubbing his face against their friends’ —including jeno’s— while saying things like “i love you” and honestly, it would sound better if he wasn’t drunk.

anyway, he misses that jaemin tonight; the one that scarcely avoids crowed rooms and gets drunk but not only by himself, but surrounded by friends, close to jeno.

it’s been hours since the party has started and he’s slowly getting tired of jaemin’s bullshit. he decides to start looking for him in the backyard. maybe, if he’s lucky enough, the music there wouldn’t be that loud.

yukhei’s house is placed on the top of a hill at the end of the street and his backyard is spacious and free of branchy and tall trees that would hide the view of the night sky. that’s probably the reason why everyone likes going to his summer parties to watch the fireworks, of all places in the town.

there’s a swimming pool where some people have decided to make out even though tonight the air is chilly and jeno wouldn’t try to plunge his feet in it. he walks by the pool ledge until hopping over a free deckchair that is placed on a row. surprisingly, he glimpses mark’s face, surrounded by a group of people jeno believes he has seen in the high school hallways. his friend is clapping and laughing about something and jeno’s ears catch the sound of donghyuck’s voice too, breaking through the noise of disjointed voices chatting in the back of the yard. jeno decides to stand up and goes towards them, his drink still intact and already warm between his fingers. 

_i’m a loser, _he thinks while leaving the plastic cup on the floor. he’s been avoiding drinking the whole night because he still hopes he can manage, for better or for worse, to have _the _conversation with jaemin. if he’s going to start blurting out his feelings in front of the person he's in love with, he _cannot_ be drunk, he needs to be sure he’s not fucking up everything again.

when he gets to break through the mass of people, jeno comes upon yukhei’s infectious smile, sitting on the floor near mark while the other boy sits on one of the deckchairs. he’s holding a guitar, hands spread all over the instrument, as he tries out some chords. unlike mark, donghyuck is seated on the ground beside him, fingers buried in the grass, gaze perched somewhere on mark’s face while he speaks.

yukhei starts chanting “play something!” and mark, who gets shy whenever someone gives him some attention, lowers his head trying to avoid the stares that are now fixed on him. he laughs with remnants of flush all over his neck and ears.

“oh god, please tell me you’re not going to play wonderwall, mark,” donghyuck whines before noticing jeno’s presence. “hey, boring ass,” he calls, offering a seat near them with a tilt of his head. “come sit with us.”

“are you having fun?” yukhei asks with that big smile he always has for everyone.

“yeah,” he lies, shrugging, not really sure how to successfully do it.

“where’s jaemin? is he getting drunk without you?”

_fuck._

“dunno.”

“but, aren’t you with him?”

he’s caught off guard and exclaims, “am i what?”

yukhei huffs a laugh and then corrects himself, “i mean, he’s your best friend, right? you two are like a pack, it’s weird seeing you without him,” he explains.

“well, things are a bit difficult right now.”

donghyuck’s voice stands out of everything else at that moment and, fortunately, the conversation ends there.

“in honor of this 80s concept party, i’m going to sing eternal flame by the bangles!” donghyuck announces and everybody cheers.

“is he really going to sing?” yukhei wonders, excitement in his eyes as he shifts his body slightly to start clapping.

jeno smiles, _of course he is_, donghyuck’s smooth and unique voice can pull every genre and smash it. he sings at every chance he gets, at every moment in the middle of any conversation, whenever you least expect it, even when they’re too busy insulting each other while playing overwatch. he enjoys singing in front of people, getting all the attention and receiving the praise of his audience at the end of his short performances.

honestly, donghyuck is made to be on the stage and maybe in another world, in another universe, jeno believes he has already made that dream come true. still, this donghyuck hasn’t achieve that yet, this donghyuck sings at parties surrounded by elated and also drunk people that won’t remember anything the next day. he also has mark and that ability of him to play songs he only knows from ear —a gift, johnny says— so he accompanies his voice with the guitar whenever he has the chance.

in other words, both of them make the perfect duo and that’s why people around them are so interested now in the way mark’s fingers strum out the first notes. the melody timidly starts as mark mumbles “i can try, i can try… but i don’t know all the chords” and donghyuck’s expression shifts into a softer one, eyes fond and bright, a smile at the edge of his lips waiting to lift up the corners of his mouth.

jeno knows he’s as fucked up as him when he starts singing:

_"close your eyes, give me your hand, darling_

_do you feel my heart beating,_

_do you understand?_

_do you feel the same?_

_am i only dreaming or_

_is this burning an eternal flame?_

_i believe it's meant to be, darling_

_i watch you when you are sleeping_

_you belong with me"_

the words sink into jeno’s head like bullets. donghyuck seems focused in singing but as the song continues, he starts looking kind of mesmerized by the lyrics, but also by mark's existence. jeno hesitates before staring at mark and observes the boy has his eyes fixed on the motion of his own hands as he plays. jeno doesn’t know if he’s overlooking something, but he could swear mark is avoiding donghyuck’s penetrating gaze.

_"say my name_

_sun shines through the rain_

_a whole life so lonely"_

jeno follows the way donghyuck’s eyes drop onto the curve of mark’s mouth and notices the way the older boy sticks out his tongue, wetting his lips, uneasy, as he misses one of the chords. mark breaks a strangled laugh in a low voice, but donghyuck keeps singing with flush making a place across his cheeks:

_"and then come and ease the pain_

_i don't want to lose this feeling, oh_

_close your eyes, give me your hand_

_do you feel my heart beating,_

_do you understand?"_

this time, jeno watches mark swallowing a lump in his throat, jittery, and jeno narrows his eyes, confused. afterwards, the music stops and mark’s hands flail down. he almost clumsily drops the guitar, as he takes a deep breath, looking around while people start clapping a bit confused by the abrupt ending. he gives donghyuck a brief look, no words needed, it’s a silent _why_ and a million other questions he seems to have in mind in that moment, when the world stays still and suddenly in yukhei's backyard there’s only donghyuck and mark, totally oblivious of jeno’s worried eyes scanning their face expressions.

“that was amazing, guys!” extols yukhei with thrilling eyes. mark gives him back the guitar with a feigned smile, and excuses himself before getting on his feet.

donghyuck looks as if he was starting to realize what he has done, eyes widening, probably wanting to die. the truth has inevitably slipped out of his mouth because he’s tipsy and a fool. and maybe yukhei doesn’t get it, but mark isn’t that dumb. even jeno knows what those words —concealed as mere lyrics of a random song he casually wanted to sing— are implying.

mark has realized that donghyuck’s feelings have been hidden under a thousand layers of sarcasm, under helpless jokes; feelings perched in the depths of donghyuck’s heart that now rise upon the sky and spread their truth over them.

but mark isn’t sure how to handle a situation like that, at least that’s what it seems like when he decides to run away. the deja vu flashes in jeno’s head like frightening ghosts spotted by the shine of a lighthouse, ghosts that look exactly like storms and jaemin’s back.

“excuse me,” mark says, breaking through the crowd of people.

and that’s how he disappears, like a spiral of breath in the wintery fog of january mornings.

the same way jaemin did a few days ago.

jeno’s eyes aren’t fast enough to manage to follow the motion of donghyuck’s body, though. he gets up in a blink, drink almost pouring over yukhei’s jeans, before his friend makes the surprising decision of chasing mark’s shadow inside the house.

and jeno ponders over his past choices, and regrets all of them. he could have followed jaemin, drag his courageous being into the rain, catch jaemin’s hand, and squeeze it tenderly with his own while speaking up those words “_i think i love you_” to finally shatter the entire world under their weight, like a vast lighting crashing into the ground.

safe to say, jaemin would have also crashed his heart right away, but it wouldn’t hurt as much as it does tonight. at least, not as much as it has been hurting throughout these torturous days of uncertainty.

jeno decides to follow donghyuck into the house, where the people sing in unison “gold” by spandau ballet. he wants to try help his friend, if he still can, but as his shoulders brushes strangers’ ones, making his way through the tipsy people crowded around the door, and he follows what he believes it’s still donghyuck’s body going upstairs, his eyes catch the sight of taeyong dancing with that guy he was talking at the beginning of the party, near the stairs. the older boy leans to kiss him in the mouth and jeno feels a flush covering his ears. he looks away, hurries upstairs and hastily stumbles into the nearest room.

before he can even place himself, he recognizes the sound of mark’s voice in the middle of a conversation with donghyuck in the bathroom of what seems to be yukhei’s parents room. jeno steps back, afraid of being interrupting what it looks like an argument. immediately right after that, through the reflection of the mirror his eyes catch mark’s dark hair getting covered by donghyuck’s hands and his voice disappears on the edge of donghyuck’s lips. jeno freezes as if winter had arrived earlier this year, and searches with sweaty hands for the handle of the door. he steps back as quiet as a voiceless thought, and runs through the corridor to what seems like a bathroom before one of them can notice his intrusion, shutting the door in a slam.

_water_.

he needs to splash fresh water onto his face.

he has so much to think about and maybe also scream. for some reason, he’s mad at himself, at his doubts and at the world that keeps reminding him he should have done something back that day, and maybe he would be right now kissing jaemin, too. but instead, his friend is nowhere to be seen. actually, he’s probably kissing another mouth that isn’t jeno’s and the thought pains him enough to make his stomach twist as if a dagger was tracing his flesh with a sharp blade. 

“oops!” a female voice says after someone hastily opens the door. “oh, jeno!”

it sounds familiar, almost like a forgotten memory, and he turns around not expecting to see _her_, of all people in the world.

a girl wearing overalls supports herself against the door’s frame. she has her brown hair tied up in a ponytail, and has purple glitter beneath her big and dark eyes, as if there were tears coming down her cheeks. she's smiling, bright and unexpectedly amused. jeno knows that smile, he has seen it a thousand times at parties and near his own, too.

“lena?” he exclaims in surprise.

“wow, long time no see!” she says, stepping into the bathroom holding her drink in her right hand and almost falling over jeno. he hurries to grab her by the arm as the drink pours down over the floor. 

“are you okay?” jeno asks.

“oh shit,” she curses, staring at the mess on the floor. “yes, don’t worry jeno, i swear, i’m fine, just a bit drunk, but that’s all,” she laughs. “what are you doing here?”

“huh… thinking?”

“in the middle of a party?”

“maybe? what are you doing here?”

“in a bathroom? i just wanted to pee, naturally,” she casually says, going straight forward the toilet. “could you wait for me outside?”

“i… y-yes,” he stutters, running out of the bathroom and closing the door behind him. he sits down on the floor with slow movements, totally exhausted, resting his head against the door.

at this point, he doesn’t even know what is happening anymore. the whole party has been a nightmare and now he has come across who should have been his first kiss. and meanwhile, donghyuck is still locked in that room, probably kissing mark until the first traces of sunrise paint the sky in a few hours.

jeno’s life is a joke and he isn’t even drunk enough to cry about it. even mark, who has always avoided donghyuck’s attempts to flirt with him, now is kissing his best friend.

_and. jeno. is. not. _

lena opens the door and he almost falls onto her feet.

“get up,” she orders while combing her brownish hair in a ponytail again. “let’s get some fresh air, it looks like you need it more than me.”

yukhei’s backyard is a lonely place at this time of the night. people rather be dancing inside the house, or making out somewhere upstairs, than spending time in the place where music can’t be heard. even so, there’s still a few people in some corners where there’re lights entangled in the bushes’ branches. the pool is empty and quiescent, as if it had never been touched. the water is blue, _deep blue_, jeno can’t help but miss those first days of summer when jaemin had plunged himself into the same pool —one summer day that yukhei had invited them to have a barbecue—, when things weren’t so different and complicated.

lena decides to lay along the pool’s ledge, placing her body against the hard floor, while jeno sits beside her on the grass, feeling rather tired of all the crazy things that are happening tonight. the fresh air greets his cheeks and he wonders how has he ended up hanging out with lena again, after all, and why isn’t jaemin with him instead.

they stay in silence for a few minutes, along with the muffled sound of music coming from the house, the mumbling noise of voices, a girl crying somewhere and crickets singing in the darkness of the night.

“jeno, can i ask you something?” she finally says, snapping her eyes up to jeno’s. he nods. “why didn’t you kiss me, that time?”

he sits up suddenly feeling the awkwardness climbing his back and covering his arms and hands. he looks around, searching for a familiar face but he only finds lena’s.

“huh… i- i just… i don’t know how to answer this.”

“you are not gonna kiss me tonight, right?” she inquires. “even though we’re drunk.”

_shit. _

jeno’s breath catches in his throat and mutters, “oh, n- no…”

“thank god,” she exhales, closing her eyes and plunging one hand into the water. he hears the babbling sound of her hand dancing in the pool. after a long silence, lena says, “can i tell you a secret?” she takes her hand out of the water as she stares at jeno in the eyes. “i think i’m lesbian.”

“oh." that wasn’t what jeno was expecting whatsoever, but hearing those words aloud, words said by a girl who shares the same secret as him, it kind of encourages him to be braver about his feelings, too. “can you keep a secret too? i think i’m gay."

lena shoots up her brows, “really?”

jeno nods.

“now everything makes so much sense…” she mutters.

“i know, it’s like my whole life has been a lie.”

“yeah, i feel the same,” lena agrees. “like i’ve been trying to convince myself i were into boys, when i didn’t even want to try anything with them unless i was drunk. but it frustrates me because i feel like i’ve missed so many opportunities. and even though now i’m sure about my sexuality, and even though i feel at peace with myself, my mind keeps telling me that maybe i’m just wrong and confused,” jeno looks at her intently, nodding from time to time. it’s the first time he feels he can share his feelings with someone besides jaemin. “i'm scared of being wrong again,” she continues, “i just don’t like not knowing myself. i'm terrified of the idea of falling in love with a man someday, even though i'm sure i won't because when i picture myself marrying a man it makes me so upset. does it make any sense, at all? i don't know, i just don't want my whole life to be a lie all over again, like a vicious cycle that repeats every time,” she mumbles. “tell me i’m not crazy.”

she’s not, actually. when jeno was nine, he had a marathon of all the lord of the rings movies with doyoung. they ate almost three packs of pop-corns, and while they emptied every can of coca-cola they had in the fridge, night came smoothly through the windows without them even noticing. their parents weren’t home —they’d reserved a spa for their anniversary— and had the entire weekend only for them.

every time aragorn appeared on the screen, doyoung commented how handsome he looked. at some point, towards the end of the movie, he said he was the man of his dreams because he was _“literally perfect”,_ and jeno could’ve believed him if it wasn’t because legolas existed. his lungs struggled with functioning normally every time he had a close-up. legolas had that long blonde and shiny hair, could fight a myriad of orcs with only the help of a bow and jeno had to deny himself —a thousand times that day— that he was attractive enough to put a poster of him in his fucking wall.

later, he developed a crush on will turner, and also orlando bloom.

“i mean, he’s a good actor, right?” he tried to convince doyoung once, but his brother just shrugged.

“i don’t know, i’m not really interested in him. but he’s hot,” said his brother.

still, jeno was completely sure the reason why he liked him that much was strictly because he was talented, and nothing else. so when they played truth or dare and his friends talked about kissing boys and made disgusted noises, he had to ignore the fact that he saved a poster of him under his bed.

_fuck_, it was so clear he had a crush on him, but still he thought it was impossible because, as stupid as it sounds, he couldn’t like boys if his brother was already gay. a dumb thought, yes, but he couldn’t be blamed; he was just a kid trying to come to terms with his sexuality in a world where you’re taught to be straight, it's not like he had a choice. although jeno was fine with his brother being gay, their parents were also fine with it and he would never have to suffer the kind of problems other children have to deal with when coming out, his head told him he wasn't _allowed_ to be gay if his brother already was. he had never heard of or seen two gay siblings from the same family and he was young and also a fool.

of course, he had watched a lot of lgbt movies —doyoung liked to watch them in family—, but his mind could never, not even once, come up with the idea, _the fucking obvious idea_, that he liked boys. and, to be honest, he couldn’t even find references to compare his complicated situation with. _maurice?_ the only thing he remembers is that maurice himself was stupid for falling for someone so fucking coward. _brokeback mountain?_ doyoung cried like a baby and he felt sad throughout the whole movie because, well, it’s a fucking sad story; but he was too young to understand what love meant and also the impact masculinity has on you (those are doyoung’s words, though. jeno’s just starting to understand what those terms mean now) so he couldn’t realize either at that time. but, _oh shit_, heath ledger on _ten things i hate about you_ was another thing…

_ah, another crush i didn’t realize_. _i was fucking dumb._

jeno has been gay his whole life without even knowing. he had overlooked on many of his past crushes all those years, convincing himself it was something platonic that didn’t mean anything at all, even when he started to develop feelings for jaemin. but thanks to him, he has now become aware of the way his body and, foremost, his heart, reacts when kissing boys, and not girls. that there can be two gay people in the same family, that it _actually_ happens because it's a fucking normal thing the same way there're two straight siblings in the same family, and also that he can _really_ feel attracted to someone who isn't just a character of a lord of the rings movie.

“you’re not crazy, lena,” he whispers. “and it's scary, that’s also true, but don’t you feel somehow better now that you’ve found out the reason why you always felt like there was something wrong with you?”

“like… feeling like you're somehow broken or something like that? that you were unable to love?”

he definitely likes her, she’s easy-going and nice and he wonders if she will remember having this conversation the next day.

he hopes she will.

“yeah, i always thought that i would never find a person i would really like, and all this time i’ve been wrong because i thought i had to search for love in girls, not in boys. but now, now that i’ve found it, i feel… great, at peace. i love this feeling.”

she grins, “so you’re finally dating na jaemin, isn’t it?”

“what? no… why do you think that?”

“oh, sorry," she chuckles, embarrassed. "i always thought that… maybe you were like… into each other. actually, i was really surprised when we started to hang out because i sensed you two were a co-”

“no," he cuts her before hearing the word that he wishes he could say when talking about him. "jaemin doesn’t…” he shakes his head. “actually, i don’t know.”

“doesn’t what?”

jeno sighs. he somehow can't help but oversharing thoughts with her, “i don’t know, we’ve kissed and now he avoids me. i think i’ve fucked up our friendship.”

“kissed?” she whispers, leaning this time near him while carefully listening to jeno's words.

“yeah, like in those movies where a friend teaches the other how to kiss because they have never had their first kiss yet. he suggested something like that and then, things happened and…”

she laughs, “jeno, you know how those kind of stories end up like, right?”

“it doesn’t seem like it’s going to end the same way, he doesn’t want me, he’s been avoiding me for days.”

but she rolls her eyes, “he suggested kissing you.”

“teaching me how to ki-”

“whatever, he kissed you, right? are you totally sure he’s not into you? cause i think he is.”

“then why does he avoid me?” he whines.

“jeno, are you dumb? where is he?” her eyes scan the backyard.

“dunno, he's nowhere since we arrived to the party.”

this time, lena hits jeno in the arm while saying, “go find him, you idiot!”

“but-”

“why are you still here talking with your _exwhateveriam_? lee jeno, go find him now!”

and perhaps lena is also a witch and her words can also cast spells because in the moment she pronounces the last word, jaemin appears through the backyard’s door with rosy cheeks and without remnants of the diaphanous smile he always carries with him. he seems drunk, and looks so _so_ lonely even though he’s surrounded by a mass of people coming towards the yard, getting ready to see the fireworks that are about to start.

jeno makes a decision, he hears lena saying _oh, he’s there, go for him!_ and gets on his feet. he strides on the people’s opposite direction, going towards jaemin before he can even get the chance to avoid him again. jeno makes his way through the mass of drunk people with their vintage clothes and loud laughs and glassy cheeks and necks, a coarse stare fixed on jaemin’s face.

jaemin glimpses jeno and steps backwards, teetering. he seems unable to run away this time, and it makes jeno feel a bit braver than before. the thunderous sound of the first firework breaks out up in the sky, anticipating the storm that is about to escape from jeno’s lips.

their friends are nowhere to be seen, but they are, in all likelihood, on their way to the backyard too —if they’re not too drunk—. every summer, things happen the same way: they sit on the ground, jaemin places his head on jeno’s shoulder and breathes out multiple _oh_ and _wow_ when the fireworks start screaming, spreading their wings into the limpid darkness of the night.

but this year, things are different; jaemin _is_ different. and jeno can only peek the fireworks’ sight through jaemin’s pupils; shimmering speckles dissolving in the darkness of his gaze.

he doesn’t know how the first words come out so easily, but he feels like those fireworks, bursting fiercely upon them.

“are you going to keep avoiding this conversation forever?” he stops just a few feet away from jaemin, whose eyes widen behind the fake glasses he’s wearing tonight.

“jeno…” he sounds bewildered.

“because i can’t do this anymore, jaemin.” jeno’s voice wants to sound rough and fearless, but it breaks when his tongue tries to say jaemin’s name. “and we’ve kissed. damn, we’ve kissed twice!” and then, it’s all fireworks and noises that resemble the sound of dozens of glasses breaking all over the place. “and you keep avoiding me, you don’t talk to me, you don’t look at me. i’m tired, i’m so tired!”

then, he hears jaemin saying, “i’m drunk.”

and jeno sounds stormy when he replies, “i can tell.”

he is being harsh but damn it, he’s too tired of his bullshit. jaemin’s eyes shake when his ears catch jeno’s words and begs, “don’t make me talk about this while i’m… this drunk…” as he steps forward in an attempt to pass by jeno.

but he's not in the fucking mood, honestly.

jeno grabs him by the arm, making him turn around. jaemin wants to shake jeno off but something in his expression makes him stop before complaining. jeno’s eyes are blazing, resembling fearsome bushfires glowing in the night. more fireworks unravel with whining noises across the black sea, shrouding their faces with goldish colors.

“so you can keep avoiding this conversation?" jeno continues. "no, it’s not happening. we’re going to talk. _now_.”

“jeno, please." upon jaemin’s head, red and green dots spread like glitter shooting up in the sky, leaving trails of smoke behind. he mumbles, “don’t.”

and jeno glowers him with inky eyes and blood boiling with rage, “ok, fine. if you don’t want to talk about the kiss then we can talk about another thing. please, could you explain to me, at least, why did you write my name in your notebook of flavors and scents and-”

jaemin blinks, his breath hitches, “what?”

“yeah, jisung found it.”

jaemin’s expression shifts into a confused one, brows clasping together, almost touching. his voice sounds kind of desperate and also a bit panicked, “what the fuck? did you read it?” he shouts.

“explain to me why my name…” jeno insists, but jaemin shakes his head.

“did you or not?” jaemin’s expression sharpens.

“does it matter?”

“it fucking matters, jeno!” he shouts, his words getting muffled by the noise of another firework at his back. “god, fuck!”

but jeno’s patience is already poured over the table and the floor and it’s flooding the entire place.

“jaemin you’re impossible!” he screams while jaemin turns around as if he wanted to run away again. _again_. _of course_, he thinks, _he always does that_. jeno wants to laugh but his throat hurts when he shouts, “could you explain to me at least one fucking thing? no, of course you can’t, you’re jaemin, you ran away from problems, you ran away from me because i am a problem! because you don’t want to break-” but the words die in the tip of his tongue before he can regret saying them.

…_my heart._

he cannot lie to himself, not today, he’s not ready to be rejected, he might never be. this time, jeno’s voice doesn’t sound rough, nor fearless; his voice is only air and daggers and half-confessions that he never dares to entirely say aloud.

“but it’s too late, jaemin, _too late_.”

the fireworks show comes to an end and suddenly, the world is quiescent for a few seconds until he becomes aware of the low mumble of voices from the back of the yard where people are commenting on the fireworks as if they haven’t already seen them a thousand times.

“please, shut up,” jaemin says before shrinking himself in pain, hands gripping his belly tightly. “i think i’m going to throw up.”

“wh-”

but before jeno can even finish the word, jaemin turns around, passing by him, a hand on his mouth, darting inside the house and scurrying towards the nearest bathroom.

_fuck._

things aren’t happening as he had planned, they are worse even. jaemin is feeling sick to his stomach, he has never drunk to the point he has to throw up, and jeno can’t even help him right now.

restless thoughts of regret cross his mind as he waits outside the bathroom for what it seems interminable minutes. at last, jaemin gets out, without the glasses but with a pale face and an exhausted gaze that meets jeno’s eyes.

“are you okay?”

“i guess i’m not,” he mumbles.

“i’m getting you home.”

they argue, again, about that too (“jeno, stop it, please”, “you’re not okay, we’re going home, now you shut up”, “i can’t go to my house, my mom is going to see me in this state…”, “okay, you’re coming to mine.”, “what? jeno, don’t-”, “i wasn’t asking, we’re going to my house. now”) and end up walking down the streets without knowing how to fill that awkward silence that makes jeno so anxious. none of them dares to say anything else, in case of fighting again, and walk side to side with only the comfort of each other’s presence. jeno hides his hands inside his pockets, fighting back the impulsive desire of brushing jaemin’s fingers with his. he never dares to do it, though, jaemin’s hands swing slightly at each side of his body. minutes later, he hugs himself when the cold air of the morning blows, and even though jaemin’s still tipsy, he looks so tired and tense, he doesn’t even try to complain about it.

when they finally arrive at jeno’s home, they tiptoe upstairs as quietly as they can and after a long time locked in the bathroom, jaemin finally comes to jeno’s room, a hazy shadow entering in silence. when he closes the door, the handle makes a soft click behind his back and he throws his clothes on the floor. he teeters before whispering,

“i’m sorry, i’m so sorry, jeno.” voice in a faint trail.

it shocks him. jeno has been sitting on the edge of his bed for the past minutes, after getting undressed, with distressed hands clutching to the verge of the mattress, heavy body and pained heart; tired of fighting. he had been practicing inside his head the words he would say when jaemin came back from the bathroom. however, when jaemin says that, those words disappear, and the only thing he can reply is,

“… jaemin, it’s fine.”

“no it’s not!” the boy protests and huffs as he makes his way towards jeno. he climbs onto the mattress with the peaks of his shoulder blades moving smoothly and his backbones timidly steaking out while he finds a place to sit: by the window, where the night has already been replaced by morning light. “you are too good, jeno, too good. and i keep fucking up everything,” he plays with his own hands, staring somewhere else, as the first tears attempt to pour from the reddish rims of his eyes.

_shit._

“i’m not, i’m just-” he doesn’t know how to answer to that, he just doesn’t want him to start crying.

it happens every time: jaemin gets drunk, he cries and someone comforts him until he stops saying nonsense. he’s an emotional person, unlike jeno who cannot shred tears unless he’s really upset.

after a long silence, jaemin shakes his head and gets on his knees, supporting himself with his hands spread over the sheets, leaning his body close to jeno’s.

“i ran away,” he whispers-screams. “and i left you there, after…” his voice quavers, the tears finally streaming down the curve of his cheekbones. jeno's heart aches at the sight, he cannot manage to stop his own body drawing near him as if he was made of magnets. “fuck. i’m crying, this is so embarrassing,” he whimpers, wiping the tears with his forearm as he clenches the other hand into a fist, wrinkling the sheets under its grip. “i know we need to have this conversation, but i can’t, i can’t do this right now. i’m sorry, i’m sorry, jeno, cause i owe you a thousand of apologies, but i can’t say this when i’m…"

"say what?"

with a tilt of his eyelashes, jaemin stares at jeno and blurts, "don’t you already know? oh god, this is not how this is supposed to happen, i don’t want to say this when i'm-”

jeno shakes his head, “okay… it’s okay, jaemin, we don’t have to have the conversation right now.”

“but i don’t… i don’t wanna lose you,” he sobs, and jeno wishes he could be the moon, for once, to press soft lips brimming with care on jaemin’s eyelids, before saying goodnight. the thought warms his heart.

“you’re not losing me,” he reassures him, moving his head closer to his.

jaemin lets out a long sigh and says, “but you never answered my message, i thought that you-”

“what the heck did you want me to reply to that? it didn’t even sound like you.”

“i don’t know, honestly,” he confesses, and looks at him from behind his downturned and long eyelashes. “when i wrote it i thought you were upset and i didn’t want to confront you, so i made up that excuse to avoid you…”

“dumbass.” jeno steps back a little. “i thought you didn’t want to talk to me because-” he snaps his mouth shut mid-sentence.

“because?”

_because i though you were going to reject me and didn’t want to hurt my feelings._

“huh… because, um, nevermind.”

jaemin stares at him as if trying to grasp whatever jeno was going to say, but gives up, shaking his head. “look, i was just being immature, thinking you would stop being my friend because of… what happened that day in the storm.”

“why would i?” but jaemin bites his tongue this time, eyes shunning jeno’s, as if he had talked too much.

another awkward silence floods the whole room and, after what it seems like ages, jaemin says, “please, don't make me say this tonight. just wait for tomorrow and i’ll tell you everything; my thoughts, my feelings, whatever you want, jeno.”

it’s the way he pronounces each word, the way his mouth overflows with that honeyed voice when he says _“whatever you want”, _it’s the way jaemin’s heart gets exposed without even realizing, the way his face softens when he looks at jeno. that's when he realizes what those words imply. he _finally _knows what jaemin’s feelings have been hiding all this time and what that tomorrow means, because he’s a fool who has been blind all this time. a blow of hope rouses slowly from the abyss of his chest and his heart thuds inevitably in mirthful. because maybe their friendship is not over, maybe jaemin is not breaking his heart, because _maybe_ he loves him too, and writes about their kisses in secret notebooks, daydreaming of doing it again.

he can wait for tomorrow, if that’s what jaemin wants. another day without touching his lips is not going to kill him, right?

“stop crying, you’re a baby,” jeno finally says, rising a hand to catch a tear that is falling down jaemin’s cheek with his forefinger. “whatever it is, i’ll be glad to hear it. whatever you tell me, jaemin, _whatever_.”

jaemin is breathless but a shy smile peeks from a corner, perhaps because that’s not what he was expecting from jeno after a half-love confession that could have crashed their entire friendship. his tears shimmer with the turmeric light of the first sunrays emerging from the horizon. jeno thinks of kissing his cheeks, thinks of erasing all those salty tears with his lips and brush away all his fears, but he knows it’s not the moment. he cups his cheek, instead, and jaemin reacts to the touch by rubbing his face against his hand, more tears bathing his skin as he closes his eyes.

jeno wonders if they would taste like sea.

if someone entered the room at this very moment, they would witness the sight of two shadows framed by a window, looking fondly at each other, surrounded by walls covered in darkness.

jeno observes the motion of the sunbeams looming over the white sheets and how jaemin’s hand, still placed on the mattress, gets slowly covered in the dreamlike morning light. somewhere outside, birds start chirping and the sound shrouds their ears like a mist mingled with hope for the upcoming future. they both seem defeated, reckless hair and exhausted and reddish eyes; a contrast with the blueish sky smeared with orange lines breaking through its limpid surface. today, there aren’t clouds, just sun and rays and light and shades of marigold. and when golden hour happens and a halo of light rims jaemin's angles, jeno swears he can hear the sky humming jaemin's name. ancient melodies claim him as if the same angels that once had created him, wanted him back in heaven. but jeno would never let them take him away; he would go to hereafter and bring him back, fighting against gods and goddesses, monsters and dragons, and even the most fearful of all warriors, if that meant he would have a chance to make jaemin stay a little longer there with him, in the solace of his bed, in the closeness of his heart.

“come, sleep with me,” jeno whispers, voice laden with tenderness, arising from the depths of his chest.

he takes his glasses off and leans down the mattress, dragging jaemin with soft hands towards the spot where light hasn't settled yet. jaemin is dozing off with those drowsy eyes of his, but jeno notices he's fighting the heaviness of his eyelids as if he didn't want to miss the sight of jeno staring back at him while caressing him with soft thumbs, where dried tears have left shiny marks.

he will recall, years later, the sound of the sheets entangling between their feet, jaemin intertwining his legs with jeno’s, searching for his warmth, getting closer and closer until placing his temple near his bare chest.

jeno’s hand curls around jaemin’s waist, so impossibly small, that he could circle it with just an arm. he holds onto him as if jaemin was a raft and he was drowning in the sea, and fights back the human need for slumber. in the end, he leans his head down until his nose gets buried in hair made of honey, and dreams of holding jaemin for years, decades,

in another universe

where the sun and the moon can finally kiss

without breaking each other.


	4. and it's summertime

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> get ready for a very intense chapter. enjoy! ♡♡♡  
[playlist](https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0fzWQGnEM7zZlZp9RCfnXn?si=7bjE7MM5RV-TQBtzWYMttQ)

_i wrote you a poem for your surprise _  
_it’s right by your side_  
_and it’s summer time._

**☾.**

a throbbing pain inside jaemin’s head wakes him up.

he immediately notices that an emptiness has made a place in his stomach and his entire being is craving the intake of water. he still feels kind of dizzy and his body hurts as if he had fallen from the highest floor of a skyscraper. he can taste the bad flavor in his mouth, the hay in his tongue which feels like a desert but covered in trash. the remnants of alcohol try to leave his body through every single pore of his skin. he can’t stop sweating.

_ugh._

his eyelids fight against the twinkling light of the sun, so he hides his head under the pillow groaning in an attempt of shying away the annoying sunrays. in the stillness of the room, his ears catch the sound of footsteps on the first floor, someone walking from side to side, talking about things he can’t fully grasp to hear, a door closing. then, silence. after a few minutes, he can’t bear the blazing touch of the sunrays on the clammy skin of his bare shoulder and rolls over onto his back, bumping into a body.

his heart is suddenly awoken.

he opens his eyes and finds jeno deeply sleeping beside him, a hand dandling from the bed, the other one buried under the pillow. his long lashes rest against his eye bags while he breathes at a slow pace through his swollen lips and flushed nose. the sound is relaxing, so relaxing he could fall asleep again if it wasn’t for that headache that is going to kill him. weren’t jaemin’s body disgustingly covered in sweat and alcohol, he would try to stroke jeno's plump and pinkish cheeks, maybe place a kiss on his temple too, because he’s beautiful and so lovely.

but he needs a shower, he needs to stop feeling as if his body was an accumulation of trash and sweat. so he finally gets up, even though his body whines with every motion, the sunrays moving across his face while he scans the room. his clothes are laying messily near the door and suddenly, he recalls the party and those fireworks, a fight, the hazy image of jeno’s room covered in morning light, his warm hands caressing jaemin’s cheek. he remembers everything as if it had happened only in a dream.

_but it was real. _

he stares at him for a few minutes before leaving the bed as quiet as a shadow. he puts his clothes on in complete silence, trying not to disturb jeno’s sleep and tiptoes towards the door while rubbing his eye, still feeling dizzy and nauseous.

when he finally arrives home, he drinks a whole bottle of water, takes a fresh shower and a pill before going back to sleep, this time in his bed, without jeno. he spends the rest of the day sleeping until the voice of his father wakes him up (“nana, you need to eat something”) and drags his weary body listlessly to the kitchen, shuffling along the house with heavy eyelids.

a couple complains about their ugly house on the television while jaemin takes another bite of a sandwich and he comes to the conclusion that it’s been a shitty day. he just hopes it ends quickly. he has been brushing his teeth every half an hour at least so that the bad taste perched on his tongue leaves his mouth, and only when his breath smells of the fresh mint of his toothpaste, he decides to lounge in the backyard to let the sun clear his mind while eating the tangerines his mother has bought specially for him.

the sound of swallows echoes across the blue sky and jaemin shuts his eyes. the motion of summer light over his eyelids appears in the darkness of his eyes in red and orange colors. feather-like touches of the air blow his lashes, brushing away the memories of yesterday for a few minutes before _tomorrow_ shows up in his mind and an anguish feeling rouses in the pit of his stomach. and when the light starts bothering him, he tosses a hand over his eyes and the colors suddenly disappear, drowning himself into a darkness made of doubts and questions no one besides jeno could ever answer.

it sounds a little overdramatic, but jaemin has been like this since the day he has born. when he thinks of last night’s conversation, he feels uneasy because he senses that jeno somehow knew what tomorrow meant —a love confession— and it makes him feel so anxious because he just doesn’t know if he’s okay with it because nothing is going to change in their friendship even if jaemin is in love with him, or it’s because jeno loves him too. he just wants to pull out jeno’s thoughts, those hidden somewhere in his head, so he can finally understand the things he says, but foremost, the things he _doesn’t_ say. because jaemin needs to be reassured that he’s not making a move tomorrow that could break him, that he’s not getting his hopes up for something that could be just a misunderstanding. if only jeno had told him what he meant, a clear “_i like you”_, not those half-sentences that don’t make any sense.

since the day of the storm he's been feeling as if he was walking down an empty road with no signals in the middle of a moonless night, a terrifying adventure he should have just avoided. and once he thinks the journey has come to an end and home waits for him with the lights on and he feels safe again —in those moments charged with intimacy where jeno holds him against the warmth of his body and he can see a light somewhere, even with his eyes closed—, he realizes the darkness is still there, that he’s just coming to disappointing hopes, because he still doesn’t know if jeno feels the same for him. so instead of light and brightness and safety, at the end of the road he only finds a cliff and jaemin is lost, lost and scared of jumping into the darkness. and if there’s a moon in that long and terrifying night, he would never know, because the truth is that he's just _blind_.

and in a secluded place of that road, the detailed memory of their fight shows up like a bad taste on your tongue you’ve tried to get rid of. jaemin can still feel somehow the fear of losing him shaking his bones, his stomach flipping and making him throw up not the truth he wanted tell him, but all the alcohol he had consumed that night. his mind has recorded forever the burning gaze of jeno, the chaos of noises and those sentences jeno couldn’t finish.

“you ran away from me because i am a problem! because you don’t want to break-”

_what where you talking about, jeno? was it your heart? just tell me, because it would be easier that way._

but jeno’s voice echoes inside his head_, it’s too late, too late,_ awakening the headache he had a few hours ago.

_whatever_, jeno had said that night with that calm voice of his, as if he already acknowledged jaemin’s feelings. later, he had caressed his face, told him he was a baby, held him close to his chest and jaemin felt safe, safe and happy. but what if he has misunderstood those actions because he was feeling suddenly hopeful? what if they meant nothing and he has believed they were something that wasn’t? is he wrong? is jeno really in love with him? or is it all in jaemin’s head?

_maybe. maybe not._

the day passes smoothly. jaemin lays on a deckchair and observes the motion of some dispersed clouds casually peeping above him. he feeds himself the last tangerine slice, his hands covered in the scent. he hears the hum of a car passing somewhere in the street behind his house, the sound of the sprinkler coming from jeno’s house. after cleaning his mouth with the back of his hand, he stares at a bug that has been annoyingly hovering around him for the past hour, and starts peeling another tangerine.

it’s early evening when his parents leave home and he decides to put some music because it’s his thing, listening to sad songs when he’s feeling down. so he listens to sufjan stevens with tears in his eyes, not really sure about the reason, though.

_“and i would say i love you, but saying it out loud is hard.”_

damn, sufjan stevens is fucking right.

he watches the motionless clouds up in the blue and wearisome sky. he hates it because the sight doesn’t change, time passes so slowly and today is a bad fucking day and tomorrow… _tomorrow_ he doesn’t even know if it will get better. the only thing he knows is that that bothering feeling will be in his stomach again, scratching his head, crawling up his body like a fucking monster trying to devour him.

he furiously plunges two tangerine slices inside his mouth, the liquid falling down his chin, as he lets the sound of the cicadas to shy away those thoughts, replacing them with a memory that tastes like tangerines.

it happened some years ago when they were just children with minds full of curiosity. children who played truth or dare, foolhardy children who jumped off trees, kids who were not allowed to go to the river because “_you’re too young, kids”_. they loved doing things that were prohibited, telling each other scary stories about ghosts and river monsters, gossiping about their brothers’ crushes and making disgusting faces when talking about kissing. they were just children who didn’t know a single thing about life, and _it was nice._

it had been donghyuck’s idea.

“not to be cheesy,” he said one day, out of the blue, while sitting on the dirty floor of an empty building which had never been finished. “but the sunset must look pretty nice from the top of a roof.”

april was already settled, leaving kisses that bloomed flowers, painting the ground with a dense layer of grass and the treetops with green colors. they climbed up the abandoned building, fingertips meeting the coarse walls made of bricks, scratching their knees when jumping from a thick branch to the edge of the roof, helping each other with tight grips of hands.

from up there, they could reach to see everything: a man drinking a beer in the backyard of his house with his eyes closed and hairy chest exposed to the last rays of sun; a black labrador barking and jumping against a chain link fence because a spunky cat was looking at it from atop of the wooden railings; children laughing while playing hide and seek on the street; someone closing the trunk of a car after putting a bunch of shopping bags on the ground.

the scent of spring flowers was mixed with the smell of the tangerines jaemin had brought that evening. he had been pressing a slice to his lips when the day died in front of their eyes.

it was a breathtaking scene, no one said a word until jisung cried out loud because a spider had been climbing up his hand and chenle’s high-pitched wheezing noise scared some birds that were perched on the edge of the roof. jaemin remembers the sky blood-soaked, the peach-edged clouds unraveling across its surface as if they were made of cotton. the thickening twilight gathered above them; it was a hazy orange glow.

“i love this,” commented renjun. “it’s the only moment where the sun has already set but the moon hasn’t showed up yet.”

“johnny told me this is called the afterglow,” mark said. “isn’t it pretty?”

“i like that word.” jaemin’s voice came in between them. he offered mark a tangerine slice without taking his eyes off the sky. “but don’t you think it’s kinda sad?”

mark arched a brow. “why do you say that?”

“i mean, the sunrays are still here but the sun isn't, right? and if you think of it, it's like the sun has been waiting all day to see the moon, to take care of her with his warmth and all, but he has to go now. so before parting, he leaves the remnants of his light to guide her to the spot where he has been all day in an attempt to keep her warm, to accomplish that last wish before setting."

“and why would that be sad?” chenle intervened. “he keeps her warm, right? he finally takes care of her in the afterglow.”

“but it barely lasts a few minutes, before the cold of the night comes, you know? it’s pretty sad, actually.”

“dude, that’s so deep,” mark giggled. “i didn’t know you were like this.”

“you all sound like dumbasses.” it was donghyuck’s voice, who was annoyed by stupid conversations that were ruining his magic moment. they decided to shut up for the rest of that afterglow. but before that silence settled between them, letting donghyuck enjoy the view, jeno’s timid and low voice said,

“i wish the sky was always like this.”

and for some reason, jaemin’s head saved those words, recorded the memory of that evening in the warehouse of his mind, to recall it whenever he eats tangerines.

at the front door, someone rings the bell and jaemin gets up in a sudden, confused. taeyong waits at the other side with an oversized sweatshirt and dark eye bags. besides that, he looks fresh. he has a smile on his face and seems to be in a really good mood today. maybe jaemin is the only one who drank too much, the only who has been suffering the effects of the hangover through all the damn day.

when he tries to recall who he talked to at the party, he remembers seeing taeyong dancing and chatting with a boy whose name he can’t get to remember. honestly, he doesn’t really remember his face, only that red hair, red like the fireworks, red like his eyes when he looked at his reflection in the mirror of jeno’s bathroom when he was trying to come up with an apology, a sincere one.

“i have something that is yours,” he greets him with a hand hidden at his back.

“huh…?”

the porch's wooden floor cracks under the weight of their bodies when they sit on the stairs.

“you lost it, right?” taeyong says while handing him the lost notebook he thought he would never get back.

jaemin’s heart jumps, feeling his ears getting red all of sudden, remembering the things that are written in those pages.

“fuck,” he mutters, hurrying to grab the notebook from his hands. “why do you have it? jeno told me jisung read it.”

“jeno… told you that?” he says in a surprised tone before shaking his head and letting out a long sigh. “this kid… yeah, jisung read it. actually, he found it and i promised him i would return it to you. he was afraid you’d be mad at him for reading it. just so you know, jisung didn’t know it was yours.”

“wait, did you read it?”

“oh, no, no! not even jeno. i didn’t allow him.”

“thank god!” he breathes. “but fuck, jisung knows what i wrote… i wanna die.”

“he didn’t do it on purpose, though. he found it somewhere and saved it. he wanted to give it to jeno because he read his name written inside and thought that with his help they could figure out who it belonged to, but fortunately jeno was with me in that moment and i took the notebook before anyone else could-”

“wait, jeno was with you? why?”

taeyong’s gaze drops to his feet. “huh… he was worried, you know, wanted some advice.”

a million of questions pop up in his mind, speculating about the multiple reasons why jeno would ask for advice to taeyong and not his brother. it’s odd, it’s extremely odd. it doesn’t make any sense.

“worried?”

they must have talked about him. _oh god_.

“look, i don’t know what happened between you two, but honestly, i think you need to solve it, guys.”

“it’s complicated.”

after a long pause in which taeyong seems to be trying to come up with the right words, he sighs and tells him, “jaemin, whatever it is-”

“i know, i know,” he cuts him off. “i just… i don’t wanna talk about it right now, honestly.”

he has spent the whole day thinking about it, even crying about it. he just doesn’t want to think about tomorrow anymore, at least not until it finally arrives.

“i understand.” taeyong nods. they stay in silence for a long minute before he stands up in a sudden. “i’ll be going, then,” he announces.

“taeyong,” jaemin begins in a low voice, following the motion of taeyong with his eyes. “thank you.”

“it’s nothing.” a smile pulls at his mouth. he pets jaemin’s head as he used to do when they were younger and unexperienced and they shared their secrets with each other. he takes two steps before being stopped suddenly by jaemin’s voice.

“no, but really, _thank you_,” he repeats, this time standing up, hugging the notebook close to his chest as if he wanted to protect it from the world, as if it was a treasure.

it probably is.

taeyong takes a breath, he seems to be considering if he should speak up or not but finally he decides to do it.

“can i tell you something before leaving?” and he doesn’t wait for jaemin’s answer. “things never happen the way we want, so i don’t like planning things. when i picture myself in a scenario i wish it was true, i tend to remind myself that it’s not going to look like that. never. it doesn’t matter whether it’s a bad scenario or not. it’s not going to happen that way. overthinking is our worst enemy, it leads us to not daring to do something because we picture it inside our heads in the worst way possible. sometimes we also put all our hopes into something that later doesn’t happen the way we wished, and the disappointment breaks us. that's why i want to tell you this, and i hope you remember it today and for the rest of your life. even though i’m older than you, i’m still young and i haven’t experienced enough things to know about life and what is better for us or not. but still, some years ago, when i was… your age, i think? i had the opportunity to do something. i could have told the boy i had a crush on about my true feelings, and change things forever. but what i pictured in my head scared me so much, you know? i imagined the worst case scenario and believed it was going to happen that way, so i didn’t dare to say anything. some months later, i found out i lost a precious opportunity, and wondered, for years, what would have happened if i just had told him the damn truth. because when you don’t try it and get stuck by the fear the only thing you can do is lay on your bed late at night, when the time to overthink comes, and start regretting every past decision you've made. and you keep imagining scenarios that never happened, because that’s all you can do: wonder how different things would be if you just had… been braver. so don’t ever waste an opportunity just for the fear of the outcome, because you may never know what you’ve missed. and believe me, the thought will hunt you forever.”

jaemin’s breath hitches.

it’s been years since that topic has died, but one day, when they were younger and couldn’t understand how feelings worked, jeno casually commented that he thought taeyong had a crush on his brother. time later, something happened, something that they couldn’t witness, but taeyong changed the way he acted around doyoung for a while until things stopped being weird between them. and now, it makes so much sense.

_so jeno was right, after all._

jaemin doesn’t have time to answer because taeyong leaves with that mysterious smile that seems to know more than he says, followed by a wave of a hand as if he had gone there only to tell him that.

he tastes taeyong's words on his tongue. it’s scary how he seems to know everything, literally. it’s almost as if he could really read minds. or maybe, maybe jeno talked to him about the same thing and he only connected the dots. perhaps he’s trying to prevent jaemin of making the same mistake he did in the past, which could mean that jeno is actually in love with him.

_is he?_

_maybe._

there’s something weird about the rushes of adrenaline, about how humans are capable of doing things they thought they weren’t able to do once the adrenaline boils through their veins. it feels like fireworks, it burns your insides; it’s like running out of breath but in a nice way, you think nothing can hurt you. you do the impossible.

so instead of going back inside, jaemin decides to turn around the house feeling spirited and bold, a wave of courage flooding his whole body from head to toe. he needs, _no_, he _must_ talk to jeno before it’s too late because summer is going to end someday and he needs to know things _now_, now before it’s too late. he needs to be sure he’s not walking through the darkness, that tomorrow is going to be a good day, _the best day_.

he can hear the sound of his own music coming from the backyard and he notices he’s only wearing his sleeping clothes and that he probably looks like shit but who cares, at this point? the air meets his cheeks, the sun’s warm colors get carried away by the breeze, and above his head, the leaves from the old tree happily swing when he grabs a rock from the ground and throws it at jeno’s window.

jaemin rises his head and when he glimpses the sight of the clouds finally moving in the surface of the sky, and the ruffling sound of leaves rings in his ears, and the earth shines in orange shades and jaemin’s breath gets caught in between his lips, jeno’s face shows up from the window’s ledge.

he shoots up his brows, bewildered. “jaemin?”

“last night you said i broke something, you said it was too late, but i didn't know what you were talking about."

“wha-”

“but if you were talking about your heart, then meet me at midnight at the river’s pier so i can promise you i will never break it."

he can almost feel jeno entangling his heart with those warm hands of his, making a knot so tight around it he can’t breathe anymore.

the orange sunrays reach jeno’s face when he says, “i will go, then.”

and all jaemin can see is the light he has been looking for at the end of the road. he wonders if it’s the shine of his moon waiting for him.

**☾** **.**

jaemin has always made this path in company, never alone, never at night. jeno has always been with him, in all those trips to the river, to meet their friends, riding down the road, feeling the light brush of wildflowers and tall grass blades hitting their legs. they usually chat while jaemin squeezes the grip around jeno’s waist, the clicking sound of the bicycle’s chain as their soundtrack. he likes to observe the road and the yellow lines already erased by the pass of time on the asphalt, the thin cracks on the surface, the potholes, and the familiar sight of dandelions being blown away, floating around them as if it was snowing. during those rides, they share their thoughts, gossip a little —they can’t help it— and joke and laugh, and sometimes they enjoy the silence too. he likes to feel the billowy plaid shirt of jeno tickling his knees while he thinks about how much he enjoys sharing his time with him, listening to the vibrant sound of his voice with his head placed on his shoulder.

the road is dark and eerie and he can’t distinguish the faded colors of the yellow lines but tonight there’s a full moon and he can manage to walk to the river without having to use the flashlight of his phone. he didn’t expect the night to be this hot and as soon as he gets near the river, he starts feeling that familiar stickiness that is always around.

he decides to lay at the edge of the pier with a hand plunged into the water and checks the hour on his phone almost religiously, impatiently biting his bottom lip. he’s feeling jittery, agitated, because jeno must have left his house already and _he is coming_, and jaemin is going to die. the sound of wheels treading on the gravel, followed by a soft whistle of the bike’s brakes will announce jeno’s arrival.

so he waits, and waits, and waits.

there’s a sense of dread perched in his ribcage, a sort of weight sinking his chest, the uneasiness of not knowing how the night will go. he has a vague idea, a hazy image, but taeyong’s words echo somewhere in the woods, reminding him to stop. whatever it may be, there’s no doubt it is going to happen. there’s no reason to keep worrying about it. and still, he is because he’s unexperienced and doesn’t know anything about love, and thinking about that word and all the things it implies —things he doesn’t know about yet, things he would like to learn about along with jeno—, it’s terrifying.

_jeno._

they’ve been best friends for so many years and now… now it’s _weird_ knowing he’s seeing him tonight but not to play some videogames and lounge on his bed to later say goodbye with a wave of the hand. tonight things are going to change forever. he’s going to tell him he loves him and kiss him, if jeno allows him, _everywhere_ and clasp their hands together and be swept along with those kisses and-

he flushes at the thought, but shakes his head to erase it from his mind. right now he just wants to pull him by his clothes to press their lips together and kiss him, all night if needed. honestly, he cannot wait for midnight already.

_fuck, this damn day is never ending._

he watches the full moon framed by a white halo of light so bright he has to look away; it shrouds the whole place in that unmistakable shade of blue he loves so much. the reflection of the moon swims along the low murmur of the river that tonight is black and calm and jaemin wonders if jeno has ever been aware of how much he resembles the moon, or if someone has already told him. he wants to scream, release that nervousness that is griped around his bones with icy hands, and end his suffering with a taste of jeno’s lips.

he needs him to come. already. _please_.

at midnight, jaemin distinguishes the expected sound of jeno’s bicycle and stands up so quickly he almost falls into the river. he hears jeno’s steps getting closer at the same pace jaemin’s heart beats, full of excitement. he can’t help but whisper a low _finally_ before jeno’s face, his beautiful and lovely face, shows up between the dark shadows of leaves and tosses a branch aside with his forearm, hurting his skin with the rough kiss of the bark.

it seems like he’s going to start complaining about the scratch but when he meets the bluish light, he glimpses jaemin’s silhouette at the end of the pier, the moon making him look like a ghost ready to plunge himself into the water, vanishing in the mist of the night.

“jaemin.”

he sounds surprised, as if he wasn’t expecting him to be already there. _dumbass_, jaemin thinks, _i couldn’t wait to see you. _and he decides to convey the words.

“i couldn’t wait to see you.”

jeno’s eyes shake, resembling the motion of his own desperate heart.

“oh,” he mumbles, a soft smile appearing on his whole face, tugging the edges of his eyes until turning them into crescent moons. “me neither.”

jaemin notices that jeno’s fingers are wrapped around a bunch of wildflowers hastily collected and wants to kiss him already.

“what is that?” jaemin asks, pointing at them.

jeno becomes a mess of uneasy words and trembling hands. “uh, well, i just thought you’d like them… i know it sounds silly but… yeah, like… they reminded me of y-you. honestly, i don’t even know what they’re called, i don’t know much about flowers, but-”

“they reminded you of me? why?”

“uh,” he pauses, eyes skittering the ground. “you know, you always pick up flowers when coming here, collect them for us, but no one does it for you so i thought… i thought you’d like them ‘cause they have warm colors, orange, yellow… you know, the colors of…” and he hesitates before saying, “the sun. that's why they remind me of you.”

_the sun_. jaemin’s heart clenches.

“oh, that’s really sweet, jeno.”

“shut up.” jeno strides towards him as traces of flush crowd around his cheeks. he leans an arm towards him to offer him the flowers and jaemin takes them between his hands. their fingertips barely touch but the motion makes jeno’s ears become redder.

_he’s cute,_ jaemin thinks, _he is impossibly cute. _

“i’m serious, they’re pretty. i love them.”

_but not as pretty as you._

a long silence makes a place between them, only broken with the sound of crickets and the craoking of frogs.

“god… this is so weird, i’m so fucking nervous,” jeno whines.

jaemin knows, he feels the nearly palpable tension between them. his body is trying to not shake in front of him. he decides to sits as he observes the flowers, one by one, tracing their stems between his fingers, until reaching the petals whose vibrant colors have gotten faded due to the lack of light. he pinches them lightly between his fingertips and strokes them with so much care. they’re soft and smooth and so delicate he’s afraid of breaking them. they smell of his mother's cologne, of open fields and damp earth and somehow of jeno hands, too. he feels a bit sad because at night it's impossible to appreciate the beauty of those flowers that have been specially collected for him, but at the same time he’s feeling blissful, overjoyed by having him here, close to him, in his company. he lifts his head to look at jeno and thinks he resembles the light he's being touched by; the blue moonlight, the light that belongs to jeno and no one else in this damn world.

“i am, too. come, sit with me,” jaemin invites him as he deliberately places the flowers aside, reaching a hand towards him, brushing jeno’s fingers again, this time making him shiver.

“okay.”

jeno teeters before sitting cross-legged in front of him, as their shadows paint black shapes onto the river’s pier. jeno hides his hands, covered in that nice scent of wildflowers, in the hole between his tucked legs and jaemin becomes sad because he wants to hold them between his. when jeno slightly lifts his chin to look at him in the eye, jaemin realizes he wants him closer so he can get lost in his eyes for the rest of the night.

“so… weren’t you going to tell me everything i wanted to know?” jeno inquires.

_it’s happening._

_oh shit._

** _shit_ ** _._

“well.” jaemin clears his throat, not really sure how to continue. “yes, but i don’t really know where to start,” he confesses, feeling his heart racing. “what do you wanna know? just ask me.”

there’s something in the stillness of the night, in the howling sound of nocturnal birds, in the blackness of the water, in the intimacy of that moment they’re sharing where their voices are so close to each other, that the words almost stumble over each other. he would kiss him right now, at this very moment, before they even start talking about the things they _need_ to talk about. but everything takes its time, even a kiss he has been eager to give him since the last time he has held his face between his hands.

“okay, then,” jeno breathes. jaemin observes the way his throat bobs as he swallows. “why did you kiss me the first time?”

“because i wanted to kiss you.” and then he feels immediately embarrassed by the sudden confession, so he quickly adds, “next question.”

the words hit jeno with an invisible force, followed by the breeze shuffling the hair on his forehead. jaemin can almost hear jeno’s throbbing heart pounding loudly, as the conversation continues venturing into the truth.

it’s almost indistinguishable, but he perceives jeno's eyes widening, as he parts his lips slightly to take a sip of breath. he somehow knows the kiss is going to happen at any moment, but jeno’s tongue releases more words.

“why did you run away the day of the storm?”

there's a long pause.

“when we were kissing, i was… i thought you had realized that i like you. i was scared because i truly believed you weren’t into me and… i didn’t want to be rejected. i couldn’t bear it, so i left... i’m sorry, jeno.”

“it’s okay, jaemin, i was also scared of that so i didn’t reply to your message,” he admits. “your turn. ask me.”

it takes him by surprise.

“a-ask you what?” he stutters, befuddled.

“ask me why i suggested kissing you under the rain.”

jeno’s voice is so calm, but jaemin doesn’t know if he would be able to keep breathing if he keeps getting closer and closer. he doesn’t even know how to speak anymore.

“o-okay… um, w-why did you suggest kissing me under the rain?”

jeno’s eyelashes flutter slightly, pupils fixed on his. he looks at him intently while one of his hands feathers jaemin’s knee up to his thigh and the end is near, it’s here, it’s-

“because i also wanted to kiss you.”

jeno's words knock on the doors of his heart and a smile appears on jaemin's face. he feels his chest bursting into colors, into warm waves of summer shades: yellow, green, orange, red, pink, even blue. jeno grins and _oh_,_ jeno has moon eyes_, and jaemin is a wave, an implacable wave that moves along the magnetic force of his moon. but not until jeno lifts a hand to touch his face, does he dare to say it aloud.

“jeno, you have moon eyes,” he whispers.

“wha-” but he snaps his mouth shut when he feels jaemin delicately holding the hand that rests against his cheek between his and does the same thing he did a few minutes ago with those flowers.

he traces the bones of jeno’s fingers to his knuckles, the silky skin of his fingerprints, until his palm gets finally exposed to the moonlight and he can see the skin in the clarity of the night. jeno’s hands are carved in marble and dipped in silver, sculpted by renaissance artists who believed there was a suppressed soul inside the stone awaiting to be free; marble that melted under the gracious touch of fingers, just like jeno does tonight when jaemin holds his hand and presses a soft kiss on its back.

jeno has slender and nimble fingers, pale and soft palms, hands shaped in majestic forms. once jaemin releases his hand, jeno rises it towards him again, generating a fleeting shadow upon his face, brushing the moonlight off for a few seconds, before placing it deliberately at one side of jaemin's face and flourishing a smile on jaemin’s mouth with a thumb gently massaging the vertiginous edges of his bottom lip. jaemin opens his mouth lightly in a sigh that prays for clemency and closes his eyes before welcoming jeno’s kiss, and finally, _finally_, jeno's tender hands wrap jaemin’s heart to merge it with the moon dust they carry.

that’s the way they finally kiss, blatantly summoning the night to behold the sight of the sun and moon eclipsing the world with genuine love and kisses that taste of summer.

his fingers slide through jeno’s chest as if wanting to feel desperately the sound of the heart that’s been longing for jaemin’s warmth. and he understands now why people write long and detailed poems about the moon’s beauty, why they compose sorrowful melodies about its lonely soul; why humankind has spent thousands of years dreaming about reaching it someday, trying to conquer all its corners, to later selfishly claim that spot of the universe as theirs while sinking a flag on its heart.

but jaemin is not like them. he doesn’t want _that_.

because his moon is _free_ and mighty, but also self-giving and soft-spoken. his moon has mild marble hands that caress jaemin as if he was made of glass and his blood of dew drops. and jaemin would never _ever_ hurt him.

and it seems like jeno doesn't care if he melts under jaemin’s blistering lips because the moon is in love with the sun; and their kisses are messy and desperate and rough, but also kind and gentle and patient. because the sun is in love with the moon; and jaemin’s mouth glides down his jawline and explores the soft skin of his neck, feathering with his fingers the tendons until a moan breaks through jeno's lips because he has waited for years for this.

but the air feels heavier, choking, when their mouths are apart so jeno seeks for jaemin’s in the darkness, placing a hand to the back of his head, shoving his fingers into his hair, to blindly guide him to his mouth again, before dissolving like liquid.

and jaemin swears he dies.

jeno’s tongue breaks through his lips while jaemin tugs him by the fabric of his t-shirt, drawing him impossibly closer until jeno lifts his body and angles himself to give jaemin a better access. their chests get almost pressed against each other, going up and down at the same pace; hearts thudding so wildly and desperately, like a choir of celestial voices forecasting an inevitable death.

“i-,” jeno mumbles between kisses. “i might die tonight.” and jaemin laughs, freshly air against his flushed bottom lip, right after placing another kiss on the spot beneath his ear.

“that’s the plan,” he whispers near his ear, and notices the way jeno’s body trembles.

“jaemin,” he gasps, overwhelmed, while jaemin nuzzles his nose against the nook of his neck. “i-” but jaemin hushes him, pressing a thumb down his parted lips.

they look at each other breathless and transfixed. above them, he can hear the ruffling sound of leaves swayed by the light breeze in the stillness of the night; the air smells like pools and grass and he can see himself on jeno’s pupils that resemble cairngorm stones. it’s almost like a dream.

without saying a single word, jeno pushes him to make him lean back onto the pier in the most delicate way possible while kneeling. jaemin’s back meets the wooden floor as jeno places his legs at both sides of his hips and sits on top of him. jaemin swallows abruptly, not really sure how to keep breathing, and lifts his chin up to look at jeno. beyond him he finds the full moon observing their movements with those shy eyes, just like jeno did the first time they kissed.

tonight, though, jeno has blood stained with courage.

his head stands between the moon and jaemin, erasing its light, and a hazy halo shines behind him. he looks angelic while leaning down to kiss him again, but this time not in the way jaemin expects.

jaemin's eyes widen when he feels the touch of jeno's dainty lips over the sharp edges of his face, down his neck, meeting the summit of his shoulders and the deep ditches of his collarbones. he leaves vestiges of moon dust all over his skin and jaemin can’t control the long moan that grows in his throat when jeno’s hands slide under the fabric of his t-shirt to also caress the skin there.

“i think i love you,” jeno mumbles against his neck, words made by ink, forever sealing the memories of that summer with a love confession.

jaemin’s lungs collapse, he needs to breathe. he says, “i’ve always wanted to tell you those words. i think it was the only thing i didn’t dare to say aloud, though.”

and jeno asks, “would you do it now?” as he places a kiss on his cheek, another on his temple, soft and tender, and finally a last one on the tip of his nose.

“i love you, jeno, i love you,” he mutters, his voice almost merging with the sound of the river behind them.

jeno’s laughter feels like hummingbird wings when it brushes his eyes, almost shaking jaemin’s lashes, tickling him. it’s warm and hazy, summerish, and jaemin’s heart is about to burst of love for him. he wants to hug him tight, feel his body as close as possible to his. he curls his arms around him and jeno instinctively hides his face in the curve of his neck. they both exhale, filling up their chests with the air that surrounds them, feeling the rush of endorphins and the euphoria flooding their bodies.

“i’m so happy,” jeno sighs and jaemin immediately squeezes the grip, wanting him to feel he’s as blissful as him on every inch of his body.

“you’re too cute, shut up.”

they giggle and jeno lifts his head to look at him in the eye. “but it’s the truth, i never thought i would be able to do this and yet-”

“we’re kissing and you have those moon eyes.”

jeno laughs sheepishly, while shaking his head. “stop doing that.”

“but i love your eyes! i can’t help it,” jaemin insists, searching for his hands to clasp them together. “you’re too shy and too impossible, i could never share with you what i wrote on that notebook.”

“no,” jeno protests, squeezing their hands tightly. “i’d gladly listen to your words even if they’re about me and i get embarrassed. please, _please_.”

“maybe someday… maybe- oh my god, i’ve just remembered jisung knows what’s written on my notebook and now i want to die,” he whines, turning his head so his cheek is pressed against the floor now.

“don’t worry, i think he will be too shocked by now to even remember that.”

jaemin arches a brow, snapping his eyes up to him. “what are you talking about?”

“oh shit.” he shoots up his brows. “i forgot to tell you about last night… mark and hyuck kissed!”

“wait, what?” jaemin lifts his body up so quickly his head almost collides into jeno’s chin. they laugh as jeno sits on his lap.

“i saw them. i swear it wasn’t on purpose, but i saw them and i ran-”

“are you serious? like kissing _kissing_?”

“yes!” and jeno decides they’re close enough to give him a peck on the lips before adding, “kissing _kissing!”_

“our mark? our super straight friend mark lee?” jaemin continues, in awe, his fingers casually stroking up and down the timid lumps of jeno’s backbone under his clothes.

“well, i thought you were also straight and here we are…”

“shut up.” jaemin huffs out a short laugh, burying his face onto jeno’s chest. “i was the obvious one, asking you for kisses. to be honest, i always thought you were an impossible crush, that you would never-”

jeno grins in amusement. “i’m fucking gay, jaemin, i used to have a big fucking crush on legolas, don’t you remember? also, _you exist_.”

“stop it.” he groans.

“i won’t! you’re too beautiful, too-”

“please, don’t say it.” he begs. “i thought i was the cheesy one in this relationship.”

“so this is a relationship.”

“are you serious? of course it is.”

their words get entangled with the bubbling sound of the water. they have endless conversations about feelings and storms and things they’ve always dreamt of telling each other.

and as they talk, jeno looks at him with attentive eyes and jaemin pictures themselves kissing in that spot of the world when the leaves turn into crimson and brownish colors at fall. he has never visited the river in the winter, but he also imagines them kissing when the sky gets grey and the river looks like glass and the damp grass surrounding them gets covered in a thick white layer made of snow; their breaths condensing into shapeless forms dancing between their faces. but foremost, he envisions both of them kissing when the last remnants of winter fade away with the mild sound of migratory birds echoing above them. when the first leaves start emerging from the trees, flowers blooming around their bodies, embellishing the boring ground with their vivid colors; the world coming alive again, another year, another season.

jeno kisses him a thousand times that night, trying to compensate the wasted kisses they could have already given to each other if they had been braver. but there’s no rush, there’s still time until the end of summer to enjoy every moment. he decides to save this particular memory to recall it later as detailed as possible, so he can never forget the sounds that were surrounding them when he held the moon between his arms, and the way he was feeling when he was there, being kissed by jeno in every inch of his body the night he almost believed he could die from happiness. 

**☾** **.**

the first thing that disrupts the peaceful silence that has been filling the empty spaces of jeno’s room that late august afternoon is the soft click of the pen jaemin’s holding. the breeze that enters through the curtains is colder than it was just a week ago, when the final school year wasn’t about to start. there’s a pile of books in the corner of the room, which jaemin has already read during the last month, waiting to return to the dusty shelves of jeno.

the midday sun brushes the lines of the words jaemin has written on his new notebook. he passes the gild pages, searching for something until he finds it and begins to write in another page. he has his elbows buried in the mess of sheets of jeno’s bed. a mess because jeno has tickled him until jaemin has run out of breath, a tear falling down his squeezed eyes. jaemin’s feet hang out of the bed now, sometimes he tucks a leg while thinking of words that can describe jeno’s smile in the most accurate way possible.

jeno calls out his name, his voice resounds against the walls, but jaemin is too focused and decides to ignore him. he doesn’t give up, tries a second time.

“jaemin.”

this time, jaemin whips his head around with the pen dangling from his mouth while furrowing his brows. he hums, too engrossed in his thoughts, as he eyeballs jeno’s features. the boy pulls a face and then pouts. he decides to get closer to him, snooping a little over the secrets jaemin hides with the back of his hand.

“jeno…”

jeno groans and moves to lay beside him instead. he rubs his cheek against jaemin’s shoulder like a cat seeking for attention and jaemin closes the notebook while clicking his tongue.

“stop it,” he says, hastily tossing the notebook away from jeno’s stare.

“you've been writing all day," he whines.

“i’m almost finished,” jaemin replies.

“can i read it, at least?”

“no.”

“why not? you already read me our first kiss.”

which resulted in a terrible disaster, taking into account that lee jeno is the shyest person in the whole damn world. his cheeks were burning and he couldn’t even look at him in the eye. jaemin couldn’t help but laugh at his startled face.

“and you became all red and wanted to die,” he says with restrained laughter in his voice.

“that’s a lie!” he denies. “i didn’t! i love everything you write, even if i get a little bit embarrassed,” he confesses, and it sounds exactly like a child accused of stealing the last chocolates from the biscuits box of the kitchen counter. “i swear.”

“this is different to everything i’ve written before, it’s even more embarrassing, if possible.”

jeno quirks a brow with traces of curiosity dangling from the tip of his tongue, “why?”

“because it’s a poem.”

he parts his lips, in awe, and mumbles, “really?”

“why are you looking at me like that?”

“read it to me,” he begs.

“nope.”

“c’mon! just the beginning, at least.”

“maybe the day i become a famous poet you’ll get to hear it, until then-”

“jaemin!” jeno insists, annoyingly biting his shoulder.

“okay, okay.” jaemin giggles, finally giving up. “but don’t laugh.”

“i would never.”

it’s true, he likes to collect all the words jaemin writes and keep them inside his heart even if he flushes and can’t look at him in the eye after hearing the beautiful things jaemin writes about him, or about the world, or just the thoughts he likes to share with him sometimes when they’re about to fall asleep. in those moments where jaemin talks with his face pressed up against the warm skin of his bare chest, eyes closed, hearing the soft beats of jeno’s heart, the low murmur of the fan revolving his hair. sometimes jeno shares with him his secrets, his deepest fears, the way he perceives the world, the things he has never told anyone. and jaemin is so fascinated by him he thinks he falls in love with him over and over again.

“i know,” he agrees. “maybe that’s why i like you so much.”

jeno angles himself towards jaemin who draws his legs close to his chest, pressing his head against the frame of the window. jeno looks at him with a pleased smile settling across his face. and in the solace of jeno’s room, jaemin starts reading in a mellow voice,

_“you have moon eyes,_

_inking dots holding the light of stars_

_deep and dark dens where the night sleeps”_

and as he continues, the words shape on jeno’s eyes while he flushes and jaemin thinks he would die for him. he wonders if they’re still too young to know what love means and what it implies, and the things you have to sacrifice in order to keep blooming together every new spring. but he comes to a conclusion: that even if they’re just two beginners and even though things never happen the way we want; right now, and surely in the upcoming summers too, they love each other in a way not many people could ever understand, in a way not many people could ever get to feel.

when he finishes reading the poem, jeno leans to kiss him hard and deep, but mostly tender because that’s the way he does everything, with care, with gentleness. they kiss with their hearts beating at the same pace, always rapid, always brimming with mirth, as if they could never get tired of each other. and jaemin thinks the universe is infinite and vast and mostly scary, and their future as well; but the sun and the moon have never been so close before, not even in an eclipse, and both of them share stories of the beginning of the world. he could never guess whether there’s an end to what they have right now or if the source of love and fondness would stop brimming those nice feelings someday. but jaemin senses he won’t have to worry about that because he’s completely, utterly, monumentally, sure about one thing and it’s that they still have a myriad of light years to learn about each other, to take care of each other. they have all the time in the world to learn to love each other in the best way possible. from today and the rest of their lives, they'll have time to collect every detail, every scent and flavor and place and thought and shared memory, and keep it forever in that secret place of their minds where the things that should never be forgotten are safe.

because they’re the sun and the moon, and right now, and perhaps _forever_, they’re living in an endless afterglow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> end.


End file.
